CIREN

• At the Children’s Center for Neurological Restoration in the provincial municipality of Cienfuegos, patients like this two year-old, suffering from cerebral paralysis, receive specialized treatment

BY LILLIAM RIERA —Granma International—

• MAYELIN Peñate Bermúdez is content. And why not when her 2 year-old toddler can now hold her head steady, sit up, roll on to her right side in bed, face up and face down, and can even chew… “My child is recovering and I am sure that she is going to walk and continue getting much better thanks to the specialists at our Children’s Center for Neurological Restoration(CIREN),” says the informatics technician.

Flavia is one of the patients of this new institution, located in the Aguada de Pasajeros municipality, in central Cienfuegos province, where children from one month to 16 years are treated for cerebral paralysis, neuromuscular diseases, cranial traumas and other disabilities.

From its inception, just 2.5 years ago up to February 28th, more than 50 infants of Aguada have received six 28-day cycles of individualized and intensive treatment of 6hours per day, in addition to another 170 patients who have been evaluated in the provinces of Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus and Ciego de Avila, according to a reports from Granma.

Directed by Dr. Rolando Veloz Pujol, the center offers specialists in Neuropsychology, Logopedics, Defectology, Neuro-rehabilitation and a nursing and support staff who received training at the Havana CIREN facility, which is responsible, as well, for methodological evaluation, refresher courses and the systematic evaluation of the advanced therapies that are utilized in the “Cirencito”, its mobile unit.

Cerebral paralysis, which was diagnosed in Flavia along with a motor defect on the right side of her body, is the most common affliction at the center. It originates from prenatal conditions (slow intrauterine growth, viral infections in the mother, premature birth or genetic circumstances), perinatal (birthing difficulties and traumatisms due to incorrect use of forceps or spatulas, as well as respiratory problems) and postnatal (acute dehydration, metabolic anomalies, meningitis, etc.)

This type of problem causes delays in the natural development essential in the first year of life, a very important stage in which elemental responses to visual stimulus begins to manifest: smiling (at 2 months), control of head movements (at three of four), rotating around the body’s axis (at five or six), sitting upright (around six or seven), opposing the index finger and thumb (at eight months), crawling (at nine), standing (at 10 or 11) and walking (between 12 and 14 months).

Rehabilitation of cerebral paralysis and other neurological problems are extremely expensive throughout the world, if we take into account that in order to design treatment a patient must first go through a series of imagenological and electrophysiological studies, lab tests etc. in specialized institutions equipped with the latest technology.

In underdeveloped nations it is inaccessible to the majority of sufferers, many of whom have never been seen by a doctor. Also in the most developed countries there are segments of the population that cannot pay for medical care, something that should not be considered a luxury.

But in Cuba the health system, free and accessible even to those who live in the mountainous regions, whose primary contact with the system is the family doctor (the country has 71,000 physicians, of which 3,000 are family practitioners), allows the detection of any anomaly at a very young age and its immediate treatment.

This attention will be even more accessible with the incorporation of policlinics throughout the country of equipment of the latest technology and the opening of rehabilitation and intensive therapy facilities, which will guaranty that these centers can assume some the tasks of some hospitals.

However, more complex conditions, such as neurological, will continue to be handled in specialized institutions.

For this reason, young Mayelín is filled with confidence and hope and does not hide her joy when, after one year of treatment, her daughter Flavia, with piercing eyes, flashes a beautiful smile.•