Cerebral Palsy maybe/maybe not

Terminology & Reality:

It is difficult to discuss this subject without first having yet another snit about customary medical terminology. The official categorization of neurological injury which is deeply ingrained into medical "codes" (computer classifications for insurers) is based on the ability to count to four. If a person with neurological injury has only one limb impaired that is monoplegia; two limbs impaired, diplegia; three limbs is triplegia. Four is quadriplegia. Four limbs with body and head is total body. But what USEFUL information does that convey? This classification is worse than useless. It is annoying. It tends to only characterize these further by what the person can not do. Like a ‘guido’ on the corner whistling at girls and rating them from 1 to 10 the cp rating is less crude but only rates to 5! It is rating what patients can’t do without major consideration as to why. Self rewarding outcomes are nudged as these set the limits of outcome targets (future levels of support that will be needed). Aside from the fact that the limbs are not the site of injury but just taking orders as sent, the terminology homogenizes many causes. Imagine if we only had the word tree for that collection of upright plants. So much for ash, elm, oak, maple, catalpa, evergreen, spruce, balsam, birch, tulip, aspen, fir, cypress, juniper, larch, tamarack, pine, cedar, beech, chestnut, eucalyptus, hickory, walnut, sycamore, ailanthus, magnolia, olive, fig, ficus, plane, palm, willow, locust, sequoia, redwood, poplar, acacia, cottonwood, beech, box elder, apple, crabapple, redbud, mulberry, cherry, peach, plum, pear, prune, banyan, baobab, bamboo, abba, calabra, betel, mahogany, ebony, bo, ironwood, dogwood, ginko, bottle, or bonsai, burned, worm ridden, moss covered or whatever. Mono, di, tri, quad. That's it? But it is worse than insufficient. It is misleading, very misleading.