Medicine: Hope for 75%

Among the larger and more neglected groups of handicapped people in the U.S. are the cerebral palsied—or “spastics,” as they are often loosely called. Cerebral palsy (estimated U.S. cases: 500,000) is almost as common as infantile paralysis, and until recently, its sufferers were often carelessly regarded as feebleminded. Thousands of its victims were put away in institutions.

For five days last week in Manhattan’s Statler Hotel, some 12,000 parents, doctors and social workers turned out for the first National Conference on Cerebral Palsy. Research and slow, tedious treatment have proved that 75% of the cerebral palsied can be rehabilitated; many have above-normal intelligence.

Cerebral palsy is caused by certain unexplained variations in brain structure, or by a breakdown in the brain motor centers from an injury before or during birth. Having no control over certain muscles, severe cases are often unable to perform such simple functions as speaking, walking, or feeding themselves. Cerebral palsy cannot be cured. The best that can be done is to train other parts of the brain to take over the duties normally performed by the injured or missing section.

The treatment of cerebral palsy is a long, expensive process, calling for a whole battery of specialists. Great progress has been made recently by private clinics and such researchers as Dr. Winthrop M. Phelps, director of the famed Children’s Rehabilitation Institute in Cockeysville, Md. Various state legislatures have also appropriated funds. But facilities and trained personnel are so short that only about 10% of the cerebral palsied get the necessary kind of training and care.

Parents of crippled children have done as much as anyone else to help the cerebral palsied. Working in groups, they have nagged doctors into specializing in the field, set up clinics, wheedled and bullied state legislatures into action. Last week’s conference was the organized beginning rather than the climax of their work.

The national conference announced the establishment of a National Foundation for Cerebral Palsy, to act as a clearinghouse of information and to coordinate local organizations throughout the country. Said Leonard Goldenson, a vice president of Paramount Pictures, Inc. and president of the new foundation: “We are in the same position today that the infantile paralysis people were 15 years ago. The big problem, and a costly one, is in training . . . the public.”