Children and Adolescents with severe psychomotor handicaps
Many children and adolescents with severe psychomotor handicaps suffer from recurring or continuous chronic pain.
The causes of chronic pain in children with severe psychomotor handicaps are just as varied as they are complex. There are often several mutually reinforcing causes.
Additional illnesses or complications occur regularly, such as, for example, spastic cerebral palsy. This is a central paralysis with increased muscle tension in the arms, legs and trunk. These children also often have stiffness in the joints, curvature of the spine and dislocated femoral heads. These conditions are “biological” causes of severe to very severe pain in the muscles and joints.
Further physical causes are:
- Inflammation of the stomach lining
- Acid reflux
- Gall and kidney stones
- Insufficient bone salts leading to bone breaks
- Inflammation
- Severe constipation
In addition, “psychosocial” problems often increase children’s pain. Adolescents are often completely dependent on the help and decisions of others. They are absent from school for long periods because the medicinal care they require is not provided there. Resulting negative feelings and social exclusion seem to confirm the child in his or her helplessness, also vis-a-vis the pain.
As a rule it is the parents who have rearranged their whole lives in order to care for their child, and this without a break. No one cares for them and many parents can’t manage to care for themselves.