CP

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is an early childhood disease.  It usually strikes before the age of three.  It effects a little more than two of every 1,000 infants.  It is caused because the brain cannot transmit properly to some muscles of the body.  Those muscles will spasm constantly.  Depending on which muscles it effects, that constant muscle contraction can then effect bone formation in the effected area.

The exact reason for the disease is not yet known but about 50% of the cases are related to premature birth.  Though the brain is at the root of  CP, there is not a necessary relation to deficiencies of intellect. CP sufferers are found in every type of job and the full range of mental acuity.

A man named Stephen Hopkins had cerebral palsy.  He lived three hundred years ago.  He was the governor of  Rhode Island and Providence Plantations before the birth of our country; he was Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court;  he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Look closely at the document and you will see his almost-indiscernible signature due to his impairment.

My brother-in-law, Jeff Ulrey, was afflicted with CP.  R.I.P.
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