Alterations were monitored of somatosensory evoked potentials in children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy and these findings correlated with relevant clinical and laboratory parameters. Fifty-one children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy (31 boys, 20 girls; age range 24-168 months) participated in the study. Abnormal somatosensory evoked potentials latencies were recorded in 23 of 34 (67.6%) cortical recordings of the median nerve and in 38 of 51 (74.5%) cortical recordings of the tibial nerve. Abnormal tibial nerve somatosensory evoked potentials were strongly correlated with abnormal electroencephalogram (P=0.014), while impaired median nerve recordings were correlated with abnormal visual evoked potentials (P = 0.02) and a history of perinatal or neonatal infection (P=0.016). Furthermore, perinatal/neonatal infection adversely effected the recordings in both tibial and medial nerves in quadriplegic patients (P=0.023). Sensory impairment is strongly related with abnormal visual evoked potentials, abnormal electroencephalogram, and a history of perinatal or neonatal infection.
Adolescent Cerebral Palsy