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Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture. CP is the most common motor disability in childhood. Cerebral means having to do with the brain. Palsy means weakness or problems with using the muscles. CP is caused by abnormal brain development or damage to the developing brain that affects a person’s ability to control his or her muscles.
●Variations in muscle tone, such as being either too stiff or too floppy
●Stiff muscles and exaggerated reflexes (spasticity)
●Stiff muscles with normal reflexes (rigidity)
●Lack of balance and muscle coordination (ataxia)
●Tremors or involuntary movements
●Slow, writhing movements
●Excessive drooling or problems with swallowing
●Difficulty with sucking or eating
●Delays in speech development or difficulty speaking
●Learning difficulties
●Difficulty with fine motor skills, such as buttoning clothes or picking up utensils
●Seizures
Physical Therapy.
Massage Therapy
Psychiatric Therapy (for parents and patient)
Drugs
Anticholinergics (uncontrolled body movements)
Anticonvulsants (seizure medications)
Antidepressants (depression medications)
Antispastic (muscle relaxers)
Anti-inflammatories (pain management)
Stool softeners.
5. Suction machine for excessive secretions
6. Feeding tube, for eating due to difficulty swallowing,
7. Can be oxygen-dependent; sleep apnea (weak breathing muscles)
8. Tachycardia
9. Compromised immune systems due to underlying conditions
10. Poor vision and coordination.... the list goes on for a while (so stop here)
●Stimulate brain cell to grow! Yes brain can grow back! (see the MRI shown later)
●Reduce pain and more happy, alert and awake
●boost immune systems, less sick, less Hospital visit
●Increase mobility, ROM
●Improve learning ability
●Improve immunity
●Improve speech skill and communication
●Reduce the use of medicine (Seizure, muscle relaxer, stool softener etc)
●Reduce the uses of suctions (to remove saliva and mucus)
●improve breathing, increase oxygen in blood.
●improve and maximize independence in daily activities and fostering self care
●Improve quality of life
Real Example of how acupuncture can help....
2 years 8 months old boy started CP acupuncture at 32 months old,
2 assessments were made at 25 months old and 35 months old. it shows acupuncture can help CP children.
His parent added acupuncture into his therapy after 6 months of traditional therapies. because no significant result discovered. after 3 months of acupuncture treatment, his parents had him evaluated . here are the result. his 3/7 development areas(emotion/social behavior, self care, fine motor) are now within functional limit (caught up). he is now 40 months old, we worked almost 5 months more after 2nd assessment. we have seen more improvements. his parents will have another assessment in a month.
these charts can prove that acupuncture is a good option in help CP children.
blue line (normal growth), Green line (without treatment) red line after acupuncture is added x-axis is actual age, y-axis is developmental age. C pt is 1st assessment, D pt is 2nd assessment.
Assessment after my treatments (still not done yet) original paper part I
Assessment after my treatments (still not done yet) original paper part 2
based on the above assessments, we created the following charts for readers to see the improvements we made before and after our treatments (visualized the differences)
●10 straight treatments is a treatment period.
●Rest 10 days after a period is reached
●Each treatment session last one hour
●A progress report will be given after every period, based on the progress, a treatment adjustment may be conducted
●A progress summary will be given after every 3 months
●Scalp
●Trunk
●Limbs
●Ear
How long will the needles be retained ?
Answer: from one hour to four hours depend on the location.
What happen if the patient not cooperative?
Answer: need one or two helper to held them tight during the needle insertion.
My name is Susan Soto and I would like to express my gratification towards Dr. Mark Yang. I am the mother of the beautiful precious little boy named Aithen; on these pictures for cerebal palsy. My child was born with a severe condition called lissencephaly, dandy walker, Walker Walburg, optic nerve hypoplasia and more. He was a preemie and suffered injuries during utero and birth, nothing related to genetics. He was born with his brain not fully developed, or the condition lissencephally is smooth brain without the folds. He suffered aggressive uncontrollable seizures starting at 3 months of age.
He was in and out of the hospital since birth up until 2 years old. My son went to over 9 different hospitals, I was a desperate parent seeking any treatment to help him. Doctors gave him 3 months to live when born. They said this condition has poor prognosis. All his symptoms relate to cerebral palsy, unable to talk, stand, feed by mouth, walk, floppy airway, needs suction, oxygen, low muscle tone. 100 percent dependent on cares, besides suffering from aggressive seizures and needing 24/7 bedside care by parent and nurse. All doctors and hospital staff were scared of my son during every hospitalization because many times he suffered from tachycardia, needing cpr, aggressive seizures that no medicine would stop, stop breathing, turned blue, severe secretions that required deep suctioning every 10 minutes and periodic fevers with no infection or underlying reason, plus a weak immune system where a regular cold to him turns into a severe case of pneumonia.
My son tried over 15 pharmaceutical medications with no success, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and more. Every hospitalization was bad news. I perfomed cpr on my son 3 times at home and called the ambulance twice. I never became optimistic until he started seeing Mark. I saw the first smile and laugh after receiving a few treatments with Mark. I was in shock and I even cried of happiness. My son started feeding small amounts of liquid by mouth and swallowing. I weened him off oxygen, he became more alert and awake. I got amazing reports from all his doctors, they all asked me what was I doing. I expressed acupuncture and they gave me thumps up and said to continue. They also documented this on his medical chart. The best thing he became seizure free and I was able to ween him off seizure meds and less secretions. I cannot thank Mark enough for the beautiful pictures and memories that I have for life from my sons first laugh and smile. According to doctors my son was considered blind and he never tract, with poor hearing;, but after several treatments with mark, he became interested in watching cartoons on the Ipad and listening to music. I met Mark in Acupuncture school as a student; he was my classmate. After working with Mark during my internship to treat patients, I learned so much from him and I would see patients waiting hours to see Mark. I did not understand why if we had so many other interns available including myself. Until I learned that Mark has a healing hand and healing heart. He not only treats patients and does his job. Mark is a special doctor, he makes sure his patients are on their way to healing, he has other degrees in psychology which he also utilizes to ease patient’s minds. His technique on conditions is like no other. In my personal perspective he is an expert in anatomy and he has a lot of passion for what he does. He enjoys healing others. I will never trust any random doctor with my son, especially scalp acupuncture. But I give my honest testimony as a mother of a special needs beautiful boy; I highly recommend and trust Mark. He will make sure there is progress and If he doesn’t see progress, he is very honest with you. He works very hard gaining more knowledge every day, he studies and reads every day. If you give mark and opportunity for your child, you will be thanking him like I did. I will be more than happy to share my testimony in person or my sons medical history. The pictures that I shared with mark are progress of how amazing his treatments are.
Susie & Aithen
Not Alert, sleep a lot (drowsy)
Have seizures several times a day
Used a suction machine 7-10 times per hour to suck up saliva
Drugs used: muscle relaxer, pain reliever, anti-seizure, anti-depressant, Stool-softener
More alert
Fingers can open by itself, grab stuff
More movement from all 4 limbs
Can watch video by himself
Seizure reduced to once every 10 days
Only one or two suctions a day compare to 7-10 times per hour
No drug is given. Except anti-seizure medicine when is needed
Able to watch iPad ,Seizure reduced significantly, more limbs movements, smile a lot and able to pull out the needles from his forehead after 5th treatments
Cried out “Ouches” during 9th treatments
Laughed after 14th treatments
Watched TV with his Father after 15th treatments
Started homeschool after 16th treatment (Special Education in home teaching program)
completely seizure free (all seizure meds were removed), just CBD oil for muscle spasms.
The patient can watch video by himself. He was never interested in anything before or never paid attention, I never got him to track or focus on anything He was always in the air unaware of anything.
Left: first time in his life, watching TV with his Father Right: His first road trip to Texas from CA
Scalp acupuncture for CP/ASD/ACC children, how do the parents feel after a few treatment ?
A 4 years CP boy with Fine motor delay, after treatment differences
4 Years CP boy after 8 acupuncture treatments, his improvement:
3 years CP boy after 5 treatments he watched iPad the first time. he was considered BLIND
his first laughs
Picture 1: Taken during acupuncture seminar 6-23-2019 Speaker: Dr Liu, Zhen-Huan
MRI on the left was before treatment, on the right was after treatment, it is obvious that the brain can regrow with the stimulation of acupuncture needles.
Picture 2: Taken during acupuncture seminar 6-23-2019 Speaker: Dr Liu, Zhen-Huan
7 years old severe CP patient went from floppy (can not support his head, can not stand) to standing by himself after 3 months treatment, can walk by himself for 10 meters.
Taken during acupuncture seminar 6-23-2019 Speaker: Dr Liu, Zhen-Huan
CP patient was paralyzed one side. after treatment able to walk by herself, MRI shown her brain regrew.
HIS MRI 1
HIS MRI 2
James C. CP, 2 years and 7 months old (now 10 months) Progress report after 30 treatments
1. Gross motor: he can run, jump, climb stairs up and down without assist…etc
2. Fine motor: draw circles, pickup small items, feeding himself…etc
3. Sensory: huge fight when I insert needles.
4. Cognitive: respond when people call his name, look at me when I speak, cry when he see me (needles are coming), can focus and listen to a story, aware of people near him, when people leave a room, he will say where is sister or daddy, when there was a truck far away and he saw it and said truck, and his father ask him what color, he answered RED. He can do cups stacking (different sizes, he was not able to do it few weeks ago).
5. Speech: speak 3 words, sounds are much clear, before his mom can only understand 30 % , now 70-80, during the last treatment, he said “take it out” (needles). Loud and clear. He is picking up more new words, saying ING now (progressive words). Gaps between words are gone.
I remembered, during the 1st treatment James sat on top his moms lap, his mom held him while his father secured his head while I insert needles, he cried very little and barely touched my hand, almost no fight, he was an easiest for all I have worked on. Now his mom is not strong enough to hold him, we have his father do it. He cried so loud and resisted so hard. It was a good workout for the parents. This is motor skill and sensory improvement. When we started, I had a hard time understanding what he said and mostly one word and sometime two words with a big gap in between. Now he is speaking 3 words and is clear. I understand what he says and no gaps.
He had left ear hearing loss, and near sighted. Now he can hear and no near sighted.
His drooling reduce significantly.
We focused on motory/sensory skills and cognitive on 1st 20 treatments then we focused on speech and cognitive on 21st -30th treatments
Acupuncture works for CP!
comment from his Mom
Mark is amazing! I found Mark in this group and was so desperate that I gave accupuncture a try. My son has mild cp. His hands don’t work right, his shoulder twitched a lot and the scariest for me were his night seizures. We have done 12 treatments so far and after the 1st treatment my son’s seizures reduced by 80%, they were completely gone after 3rd treatment and I can sleep now!! My son’s fine motor skills are improving. His right hand thumb barely moved before ocupuncture. Now he is able to grab a cheerio with his thumb and index finger!!! He is starting to walk with his hands down and he does’t walk on his toes that much. I really can’t believe I am writing this as it’s been just a month ago that we went to his first treatment. It’s not right away. It’s is a process. Kids don’t like needles though my 4.5 year old now tolerates them as long as he gets his favorite cartoon that I only let him watch during ocupuncture. Plus Mark gives him candy if Leo doesn’t cry a lot.
And!!! Mark helped me with pretty bad depression. I wanted to try needles to see how they feel and to make my son more comfortable and I could not believe the calm I felt. And Mark helps a lot with encouragement. If you are close enough - go!!!!!
We are 1.5 hours away but it is so worth it for me I rearranged my whole life and schedule just so I can take my son see Mark Yang. In one month I see more results than 2 years of therapy!
Hello fellow CP parents,
my name is Ryann and I have a 13 month old son who was diagnosed with spastic dystonic left hemi CP at 6 months.
I would like to share my experience with acupuncture for mild CP and acupuncturist Mark Yang.
My baby Sammy’s CP was prominent on his right side, meaning he had a high muscle tone on his right leg and a more pronounced in-toeing on the right. Additionally his hips have always been tight and since birth it was difficult to open his thighs apart for diaper changes. He also had limited movement and high tone on both his arms, shoulders and chest.
I came across a post (in this group or another CP group, not sure) by Mark who specializes in acupuncture for CP & brain injured children. His premise was that baby’s growing brain can regenerate and heal itself with the right intensity and amount of stimulation. Having been educated on infantile brain development at the Institute of the Achievement of Human Potential in Phily, my husband and I understood this concept very well.
Long story short, we found out that Mark is only 1 hour away from where we live. We started treatment for Sammy in November and just completed treatment Early January. Shortly after starting the treatment with Mark, we noticed a huge growth in his movement and verbal development. Most noticeably while he was completely right-hand dominant before, he started to use his left hand more. Also he would lift his arms up and started to use his upper body in a more relaxed way. We also noticed that his toe walking, especially on the right is almost completely gone. Overall he was a lot looser and more relaxed physically in general. At the same time he was talking more and making a variety of sounds, and just seemed increasingly alert, curious, exploratory and expressive. I can’t pinpoint for sure what is due to acupuncture and what is due to normal development, but my husband and I agree that there was an explosive growth shortly after we started the treatment. Now Sammy is starting to take a couple of steps unassisted and is crushing milestones despite his initial diagnosis.
Mark was truly wonderful to work with. He cares about his patients, especially the little ones. He has invested so much time and resources into perfecting his skills and knowledge, and he just wants to help parents and our babies. My husband and I feel so blessed that we were able to provide this kind of holistic care for Sammy. For me, I am Korean, so I am familiar with acupuncture. For my husband, however, who never had personal experience with it, Sammy’s treatment and results have really opened his eyes. We can’t recommend Mark highly enough and I want to encourage CP parents to consider acupuncture for your child. At least reach out to Mark and see what he can do for your child. Here's Mark's website if you want to check it out: acupunctureforcp.com (if the link takes you to acupunctureforcp.ltd change ltd to com. I don't know why it's doing that)
Thanks for reading.