▶ Objective
Patients with cerebral palsy (CP) were registered as impairment with physical limitation according to initial Disabilities Act in 1981 but nowadays they are registered as disabled with brain lesion according to revised Disabilities Act in 2000. The current data of total disability registration are published by the Department of Health and Human Service annually but that cannot tell the specific data about the children with CP. So the objective of this study is to investigate the data related with disability registration of the children with CP.
▶ Method
Participants were recruited through database in National Health Insurance Service from 2003 to 2013. Among those, children who were born from January 1st, 2002 to December 31th, 2008 and diagnosed with CP are included in this study and their records about disability registration are investigated. The associated problems with CP are also reviewed through the data of overlapped disabilities registration.
▶ Result
Among newborns born between 2002 and 2008, total 13,591 children were diagnosed with CP. Of these children, 61.3% were registered in disabled until 5 years old, 70.4% of those were registered as disabled with brain lesion and there was no significant difference of the enrollment rate by year (Table 1). 73.1% of children were registered in disabled for the first time until 2 years old. Regardless of the age on registration, the most common disability grade was the 1st one (67.6%)... Previously, patient with CP were classified as impairment with physical limitation but nowadays they are classified as disabled with brain lesion from 2000 with revision of related law. The percentage of whom was registered as impairment with physical limitation was decreased from 3.05% in 2002 to 1.1% in 2008, it revealed that the registration error rate was gradually decreasing by year. For investigating the state of associated problems with CP, data about multiple disabilities were also collected such as visual impairment, hearing impairment, speech and language problem, autistic spectrum disorder, epilepsy and intellectual disabilities. For the case of one overlapping disability in conjunction with brain lesion, the most common one was intellectual disabilities and their rate was increased from 12.2% in 2002 to 17.3% in 2004 and then decreased after to 5.6% in 2008. In the case of speech and language disorders as overlapping disability, the rate was increasing by year from 0.1% in 2002 to 0.9% in 2008 and the other types of disabilities showed no definite change of occurrence by year.
▶ Conclusion
This study revealed the pattern of disability registration of children with CP based on database from National Health Insurance Service. It is expected that these results would be used as the baseline data for establishment of health and welfare policies concerning the children with CP.
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