In Ireland, around 2,500 people live with Cerebral Palsy, making it the most common lifelong physical disability.

Nicola Welford’s daughter, Julie, was diagnosed with the condition at six-months-old and is now 10-years old.

Ms Welford ended up having to opt for private physiotherapy and specialised treatment in the UK because of the decline of services in Ireland.

She told The Pat Kenny Show that she became concerned for her daughter when she noticed she was missing physical milestones.

“So, she wasn’t sitting up in her highchair properly when it came time to feeding her for solids,” Ms Welford said.

“She kept kind of falling over and she wasn’t grabbing her toys on the play mat like her brother would have done.

“I suppose because she was my second child, I was aware of signs to watch out for and I just realised something must be going on.”

Blond boy with cerebral palsy in baby seat and holding shoe. Image: Cultura / Alamy. 7 October 2022

Ms Welford said that while her and her family had felt incredibly supported by their local school and the accommodations they put into place for Julie, national supports have deteriorated over the years.

“So, in the early days, we were referred to our local CDNT, which is a children’s disability network team,” she said.

"The 'T' in CDNT is really important because you are very much part of a team.

"You have multidisciplinary support with regards to SLT (speech and language therapy), physio, OT, psychology if you need it – we didn’t need to avail of that resource.

“Things were much better back then – and I’m talking about nine-years ago... things have definitely deteriorated.”

According to Ms Welford, there is a “serious lack of therapists in the CDNT network”, and specialised services are hard to come by.

Age of diagnosis

Executive director of the Cerebral Palsy Foundation Rachel Byrne said that, despite there being tools to diagnose children before the age of 12-months, the average age of diagnosis for the condition remained at two-years-old for some time.

“Really what we need to have is the right care at the right time throughout the lifespan,” she said.

“Nicola spoke about early diagnosis and what that looks like; we launched a programme here two-years ago looking at early detection intervention.

“Before that, children were not getting diagnosed before the age of 12-months, whereas we know not only should they be getting diagnosed but they can get diagnosed [before this age].”

Ms Byrne said this programme has helped bring the average age of diagnosis at most major maternity hospitals down to around seven and a half months.

For more information on early Cerebral Palsy detection, you can visit the Cerebral Palsy Foundation’s website here.