الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a permanent disorder of motor function, due to a non-progressive injury of the developing immature brain often accompanied by other disabilities, such as: epilepsy, perceptual, cognitive, behavioural disorders, and secondary musculoskeletal disorders.
The worldwide prevalence of CP ranges from 1 to 4 per 1,000 live births. In Egypt, the prevalence is about 2.6-4.6 per 1,000 live births.
CP is classified according to Surveillance of Cerebral Palsy in Europe (SCPE) into spastic, dyskinetic and ataxic CP. The most common type is spastic CP.
Aiming to bridge the gap between cerebral palsy registries based on populations and those based on clinical practice, the Cerebral Palsy study Registry was established to encourage study in the subject. Unfortunately, accurate data on its prevalence in Egypt, particularly Alexandria, is limited. Establishing an online CP registry in Alexandria presents a significant opportunity to address this gap and improve the lives of individuals with CP.
The aim of this study was to design an online comprehensive database for children with cerebral palsy using the official site of the Faculty of Medicine – Alexandria University Online platform with the support of the Bioinformatics team, this was done using previously designed assessment forms including data about children with CP regarding their most prevalent clinical types, the most common risk factors, associated co-morbidities and their plan of care and rehabilitation.
The study was a cross-sectional one which was conducted on 332 children with cerebral palsy. Data entry of children with cerebral palsy started at June 2023 and continued till March 2024.
The Local Cerebral Palsy Registry in Alexandria, Egypt was developed using a similar framework of a follow‐up surveillance program for children with CP in Europe (SCPE), The Australian CP Register (ACPR), the Cerebral Palsy Research Network (CPRN) as reference databases.
The results of the study revealed the following:
Demographic data showed that the majority of cases (85%) were registered from pediatric neurology outpatient clinic of Alexandria University Children Hospital.
Age of participated children ranged from 4 to 18 years with a mean of 7.61±2.86 Years, and a male predominance (63%) was found among children with CP.
Regarding the gestational age 70.2% of children with CP were full term at delivery, 29% were born premature. A small proportion of children with CP was a result of multiple pregnancy (11.4% Twin Pregnancy and 1.2% Triplet Pregnancy). Most of children with CP in the study were delivered through CS (60%), 40% through NVD and 3.6% through instrumental vaginal delivery (forceps or vaccum). Most of cases (92.2%) were born at hospital setting. The majority of the children were appropriate of gestational age (AGA) at birth (67.5%), 30.4% were SGA, and 2.1% were LGA. More than half of the participants (67.2%) were admitted to NICU in their neonatal period, 64.4% had respiratory distress and 35.3% admitted with prematurity. Perinatal risk factors were reported for 78% of the participants.
The commonest subtype of CP based on tone disturbance was spastic type, and the commonest topographical classification of motor impairment were bilateral spastic type, also there was 7.5% of cases dyskinetic type, 2.4% were ataxic.
Regarding CP functional classification, Forty-eight percent of the participated children had severe limitation in ambulation; 41% had limited manual abilities, and 34% had limited social communication functions even with familiar family persons.
Multiple comorbidities were found, the commonest was intellectual disability (79.2%), followed by epilepsy (48.2%), also 16.6% of participated children had associated mental health concerns.
The mean total score for QoL was significantly higher among children with CP who didn’t have any associated comorbidities in comparison to children with one or more associated comorbidities.
The presented study identified that age, motor functional status, social communication functions, eating and drinking abilities, and prenatal risk factors were significant explanatory variables in multiple linear regression models for QoL.