Perfil sociodemográfico, hematológico e imunológico de crianças com paralisia cerebral tetraparética espástica

Abstract

Cerebral palsy is a group of disorders in the control of movements, posture and muscle tone. It s not progressive and it results from an encefalon aggression or anomaly on the first stages of its development. The spastic tetraparetic form is the most serious type of cerebral palsy due to clinical complications such as: mental deficiency, convulsive crises, orthopedic deformities, gastroesophageal reflux, malnutrition, audition, visual and speech deficits, and difficulty or incapacity of locomotion and movement. This study aimed to set the sociodemographic, haematologic and immunologic profile of children with spastic tetraparetic cerebral palsy, searching to identify probable risk factors for respiratory infections. Thirty children participated of the research, from 2 to 12 years old, of both genders, with spastic tetraparetic cerebral palsy as clinical diagnosis, with or without pneumonia account. Patients were separeted in 2 groups, 20 patients with pneumonia history and 10 patients without pneumonia history. The study was realized by association among the following institutions: Catholic University of Goiás, Association Pestalozzi of Goiânia, APAE (Goiânia), CEAD and CORAE, in the period from November 2005 to May 2006. In this study, great part of families of children with spastic tetraparetic cerebral palsy is formed by 3 to 5 people and has a low acquisitive power. The most clinical factors found were level 5 of motor damage, microcephaly, hydrocephaly, gastroesophageal reflux, convulsive crises and cognitive deficits, however they didn t get statistics relevance as risk factors for respiratory infections. In haematologic and immunologic assesments, lower levels of immunoglobulins IgM, IgA and IgG, phagocytic index of neutrophils and higher C-reactive protein reactivity were observed in patients with pneumonia account, but without statistic significance. Hematimetric and plaquetary index and leukocytes relative and absolut values were inside of normal parameters for all patients. The study suggests that respiratory infections are the main causes of admission of patients with spastic tetraparetic cerebral palsy. The execution of this study, by the association among the refered institutions, permited the knowledge of clinical, haematologic and immunologic conditions of the children with spastic tetraparetic cerebral palsy and the knowledge of sociodemographic reality of their families. Results showed that conditions that favoreced respiratory infections in children with spastic tetraparetic cerebral palsy are multifactorial, getting harder to set risk factors separately.