A Study of the Food Intake of a Group of Children with Cerebral Palsy in the Lakeville Sanatorium

Abstract

A vicious circle is rounded out here: deficient food intake because of eating difficulties retards development and so lowers food demand.

Heterogeneity of muscle sizes in the lower limbs of children with cerebral palsy

“…Subjects with CP are often smaller in body mass and height than their TD counterparts . It was previously shown that lower limb muscle volumes of healthy subjects scale with the product of height and mass .…”

Dietary Intake in Physically Disabled Students

“…However, with the low caloric intake, it is very likely that serious individual nutrient deficiencies of the food intake may occur, and may be an important factor in retarded growth. Leamy [3] stated that, because of a low caloric intake, the body may tend to adjust itself by using protein for energy rather than for growth. The percentage distribution of the caloric intake among the different meals is shown in figure 3.…”

“…[1], P eeks and Lamb [2] and Leamy [3], In Sweden, similar problems exist in physically disabled children living in institutions, which provide the children with similar diets, irrespec tive of the degree of their physical handicap.…”

Growth in children with Cerebral Palsy

“…Earlier studies and prevailing wisdom assumed that growth failure was due to the underlying disorder [Dietz, 1989] or to some set of factors linked with the underlying disorder. Various investigators have suggested that the etiology of growth failure in these children is due to central nervous system damage [Palmer, 1986], lack of normal activity and altered energy expenditure [Phelps, 1951;Ruby and Matheny, 1962;Eddy et al, 1965;Berg and Isaksson, 1970;Shapiro et al, 1986;Bandini et al, 1991], limb atrophy and scoliosis [Sanders et al, 1990], and chronic malnutrition [Leamy, 1953;Patrick et al, 1986;Gisel and Patrick, 1988;Sanders et al, 1990]. Recently, studies have focused more specifically on the impact of under nutrition or frank malnutrition as the most frequent cause of growth failure, particularly among severely affected children.…”

“…Reports in studies before 1970 [Leamy, 1953;Sterling, 1960;Tobis et al, 1961;Ruby and Matheny, 1962;Hammond et al, 1966;Thelander and Pryor, 1967] suggested that height was usually below 10th centile and less than 3rd centile in the most severely affected children. Spender et al [1989] evaluated a tertiary clinic population of 100 children with CP using length of the upper arm and lower leg in place of height; height is often very difficult to measure in these children because of joint contractures and spasticity.…”