Asymmetric spastic infantile cerebral palsy; a clinical study of its causation.

THE TERM "infantile spastic cerebral palsy" is generally applied to spastic motor defects, with or without athetosis, recognized at birth or soon after or developing during the early years of life, and due to abnormalities of the brain. The vast majority of these cases fall into the following etiologic categories: (1) developmental anomalies, which in a small number may be genetically determined; (2) cerebral trauma during the birth process; (3) cerebral degenerations, and (4) acquired postnatal cerebral abnormalities, mainly traumatic or infectious. The clinical picture may be rather variable, but in general can be separated into two groups: (1) the symmetric palsies, including the diplegias, which exhibit symmetric involvement on both sides of all four extremities but to a greater degree in the legs, and the paraplegias, in which the lower extremities are equally involved, and (2) the asymmetric palsies which include the hemiplegias, monoplegias, triplegias and quadriplegias. The quadriplegias