Somatosensory evoked potentials(SEPs) provide non-invasive methods for the evaluation of the nervous system from peripheral nerve to cerebral cortex. In patients with CNS degenerative disease responses recorded over the caudal and rostral spinal cord are similar to normals, thus SEPs are related to cerebral function and is valuables to evaluate the maturation, especially with auditory(brainstem evoked potentials) and visual evoked potentials.
The short latency SEPs were studied in 34 children with cerebral palsy aged from 1 to 5 years(mean, 2 year 5 months), These SEPs were then analyzed and graded into 4 categories by the waveforms, amplitudes and latencies.
The results were as follows;
1) By the grade of SEPs, normal response was 43.5%, slight alteration 20.4%, severe alteration was 16.6% and no response was 22.3% in the median nerve SEPs. In the tibial nerve SEP, normal response was 16.7%, slight alteration was 20.0%, severe alteration was 33.3% and no response was 30.3%.
2) In children with spastic diplegia, the abnormal SEPs were 35.3% in median SEPs and 89.5% in tibial SEPs. In spastic quadriplegia, the abnormal SEPs were 70.0% in median SEPs and 100.0% in tibial SEPs. In hemiplegia, 77.8% showed abnormal median SEPs and 60.0% in tibial SEPs. The abnormal SEPs were shown in the unaffected limbs as well as the affected limbs.
3) The mean points of no head control was 4.0±0.0 by scoring system and it was gradually lower toward the developmental stage of walk alone as 1.65±1.06 on median SEPs. The mean points of no head control was 3.0±0.0 and that of walk alone 1.80±1.07 on tibial SEPs.
