During the baby's physical examination, the doctor will pull the baby's small hands and calves to assess the baby's muscle tone development.
For the word "muscle tone", many parents are relatively unfamiliar, but go to the Internet to check, you will see a saying "low muscle tone is Tang's child, high muscle tone is cerebral palsy", so that parents nervous.
So what exactly is "muscle tone"? How big is the relationship with cerebral palsy and Tang's children?
What is muscle tone?
Muscle tone is the force produced by muscle cells pulling on each other, and the degree of tension of muscles in a state of rest and relaxation is called muscle tone.
Muscle tone is the basis for the movement of maintaining various postures in the human body. The production of muscle tone is a reflex activity.
In short, we as mothers must understand that the necessary muscle tone is necessary to maintain the position of the limbs, support the weight, and is also necessary to ensure the movement control ability of the limbs, the spatial position, and the necessary conditions for various complex movements.
In order to better understand muscle tone, let's first understand what muscle tone is:
One is resting muscle tone, when the baby sleeps, the mothers can observe the shape of the muscles, touch the hardness of the muscles, and the flexibility of the hands and feet when moving.
The second is postural muscle tone, and the mother can observe the contraction state of the baby's limb muscles when the baby does various movements to judge.
The third is motor muscle tone, when the baby is playing, the mother can observe whether the baby's joints are flexible.
What are the manifestations of dystonia?
Dystonia is usually divided into three types: decreased muscle tone, increased muscle tone, and dystonia.
Hypotonia: We often see children who are less toddlers, and whose gaits accompanied by dance-like movements are most likely to show the result of hypotonia.
Increased muscle tone: Some toddler babies have obvious backing when they are exerting force or crying, and when strangers touch the child's muscles, the child's muscles will be tense, most of which are increased muscle tone.
Dystonia: persistent, abnormal posture and incoherence and incoherence of ongoing movements.
Speaking of which, many moms will ask, how can you find your baby's muscle tone abnormalities?
To use an image point metaphor, muscle tone is like a spring, muscle tone is low, that is, the spring is loose, feel that the child is always very soft, no strength; High muscle tone, that is, the spring is tight, and it feels like the child is always tense.
Doctors usually move the baby's limbs and joints to feel the muscle tone of the baby's muscles when they are relaxed, and to preliminarily determine whether there is a possibility of diseases of the central nervous system, peripheral nerves and muscle system.
At home, we can also use some simple methods to check the baby's muscle tone, the most basic is the observation method, such as: foot varus, foot valgus, scissor step, posture abnormalities and so on.
In addition, it can also be judged by some actions, such as:
Hold your baby's ankles and gently push your feet upwards so that the surface of your feet is as close to your calves as possible, if you can't push or your baby resists strongly, you need to consider the possibility of high muscle tone.
Is high muscle tone cerebral palsy? Is the low side of the Tang clan?
Children with cerebral palsy will indeed have high muscle tone, and Down children will also have low muscle tone, but this does not mean that there is high muscle tone or low muscle tone, that is, cerebral palsy or Down's baby.
A child born normally, even if the muscle tone is low, but if there is no brain injury, the subsequent development is normal, it cannot be said that he has cerebral palsy. Because only a clear brain injury can cause cerebral palsy.
Down's judgment is that a chromosomal examination is required to confirm the diagnosis.
Therefore, it is not possible to judge whether the baby is cerebral palsy or Down's child according to the level of muscle tone.
Treatment modalities that effectively address dystonia
In general, the rehabilitation effect of low muscle tone is not as good as that of high muscle tone, but if we can accurately find the root cause of the disease, and develop a reasonable training plan, coupled with the active cooperation of parents, the training effect will be very fast.
Regardless of the cause of the tone problem, the earlier the intervention, the better the effect. If the parents pay attention to it, the child also cooperates, and there is a great hope of catching up with the baby of the same age.
As for how long it takes to train to have an effect, this varies from person to person, and most of them will have a more obvious effect in more than 3 months, but because of the existence of individual differences, the time is uncertain. It is best to go to a regular rehabilitation institution, the effect will be better.
Regarding dystonia, doctors usually treat it as:
Primary treatment: proactive intervention is taken for diseases that cause dystonia, such as brain diseases and neurological disorders.
Physical therapy: Deep stimulation of your baby's muscles to strengthen circulation in specific areas and promote the early recovery of your baby's muscle function.
Exercise training: During exercise, various traction therapies are performed to stimulate and relieve the automatic adjustment ability of the muscles.
Because abnormal muscle tone will bring great obstacles to the baby's various functions, it is the best choice for parents to find out in time, treat it as soon as possible, and attach great importance to it.