What is Spastic Cerebral Palsy

Spastic cerebral palsy is the most common type of cerebral palsy. The muscles of people with spastic cerebral palsy appear stiff and their movements may look stiff and jerky.Spasticity is a form of hypertonia, or increased muscle tone. When people without cerebral palsy perform a movement, some groups of muscles turn on and some groups of muscles turn off. In people with spastic cerebral palsy, both groups of muscles may become turned on at the same time. In some instances the wrong muscle groups may turn on. This makes movement difficult or even impossible.
Muscles appear stiff because the messages to the muscles are sent incorrectly through the damaged part of the brain
When a muscle is affected by spasticity, the faster the limb is moved, the stiffer it seems
Spasticity arises as a result of damage to bundles of neurons in the brain and spinal cord called the corticospinal tracts andcorticobulbar tracts
Spasticity is seen in a number of different conditions including cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke and multiple sclerosis

People may have difficulty moving from one position to another and controlling individual muscles or muscle groups needed for performing certain tasks like handling objects or speaking