Recently there was increasing numbers of low weight premature baby cased by increased number of pregnancy of advanced maternal age, artificial insemination, multiple fetus. Consequently numbers of PVL patients are increased. .

PVL brought various disorder symptoms, first, tonic lower extremity paralysis often observed, second, developmental retardation accompanying with mental retardation could be found, third, there will be various kind of behavioral disorder appeared, particularly during school age, problem occurred for short attention.

What we have to focus on here is, disorders caused by PVL are mixture of cause and effect.

In the gray matter of the cerebral cortex, there is nuclei of brain cells concentrated and so there exists the function of each brain cells, but in the white matter area, it is composed by neural delivery system without a cell nucleus. PLV is occurring around the ventricles are mainly motor function carrier. Therefore impaired bilateral paralysis, is motor paralysis, result from PLV is appeared and observed in most patients of PLV.

On the other hand, the behavioral disorders such as mental retardation or learning disabilities are not due to the white matter area demaged. More exactly, it is because of unreformed persistent disease causing PLV even after birth. The main cause of PLV is ischemic parenchyma necrosis due to unstable brain blood flow of premature baby. In order word, PLV is one of various symptoms result from unstable cerebral blood . There are both symptoms coming together a increase in cerebral hemorrhage and hypoxia encephalopathy due to increasing cortical instability caused by blood disorder. It interferes with the normal development of the brain and the consequent results is behavioral problems such as such as mental retardation and learning disabilities.

Therefore, the paraplegia and mental retardation observed from PLV should be understood completely different disease systematically though it tends to appear together.

About Periventricular Leukomalacia ( PVL) Clinic

It is identified in our clinic, if they take treatment before one year old, the mental retardation or any behavioral disorders would be tremendously improved with only two or three months intensive treatment. The cognitive development were dramatically shown and rapidly got into the normal children's development category. That is, the mental retardation and behavioral disorders are not caused by Fatal cerebral tissue damage but instability due to circulation disorders, it is understood that the gradual degeneration of the cortex are in progress. So it seems improvement responsed quickly when combined with proper nutrition therapy. As far as paraplegia concerns, a long times of treatment should be tried to unwind whole stiffness though it appears rapid improvement with treatment response. However, most can be restored to a level of not so significant inconvenience with the concentration of the treatment before one year old. This indicates a very strong rehabilitation process, which is replacement of function, activating surrounding tissue without restoring already damaged white area. Consequently, we can say that development disorders, paralysis disorder, mental retardation result from PLV can be made ​​to almost normal developmental level when you proceed with the early treatment before one year old. It is identified very frequently on our treatment process. If patient diagnosed as PLV exhibit signs of insanity, we recommend to apply our treatment immediately. Particularly in case of patient around 3 months old, displaying lack of eye contact or laugh, it can be regarded beginning of mental retardation. If patient diagnosed as PLV exhibit signs of insanity, we recommend to apply our treatment immediately. Moreover, unless the very small amount of white matter area is positioned around the frontal lobe, in most case you will see paraplegia. That is one other reason that we recommend to proceed to start treatment earlier from neonatal period than to proceed rehabilitation treatment after 6 month when stiffness appear. It is to avoid and to minimize possibility of paralysis. There is a medical way of rehabilitation for already happened paralysis, however, to prevent mental retardation and spastic paraplegia, I can say that the chinese treatment is the only available way to treat properly at this present.

A treatment case of cerebral paralysis of PLV infant patient caused by spastic movement disorder

She was born in 33rd week as 1.9kg premature baby, stayed in incubator for 10 days after birth. There was hypoxia of newborn, and so put on respirator, diagnosed PLV after all. She was undergoing rehabilitation since 2 months old and visited us 5th month since birth. She had clear eye contact and began to coo in 3rd month since birth. Even she distinguished strangers . She was within the normal range of development in regards of cognitive and language development status.But the big problem is to stiff out neck and arm (upper limp) with bilateral paralysis of lower extremity. Her stiffness and rigidity status is too serious to move free hands and feet, with overall movement disorder, She was prognosticated to be fixed as cerebral palsy. With continued rehabilitation treatment, it became soften a little bit, but still there was big barrier to be able to walk with normal gait. In this case, it is effective to combine nutritional treatment together with free- paralysis treatment to release paralysis. And to apply acupuncture is highly effective as an immediate and intensive treatment to release paralysis. With the herbal treatment, we applied acupuncture every two days in long term basis. While we proceed treatment, her body began to soften rapidly. Starting to soften neck, became to soften finger movement, picking up upper body, straighten and turning her shoulder. Tese whole process happened in a month time. In 4th month, upper body became soften mostly and so she could make an attempt to grab stuffs by herself. The lower body also soften and so she could even make a movement crossing legs free from the rigid pattern. Since her legs could cross, when crawling becomes stable, her development will keep going on to be able to walk. Her parents were so satisfied with this rapid improvement. It seems that acupuncture and herbal treatment is highly effective rather than rehabilitation treatment in taking care of this type of Tetanic disorder. However, it is not possible to establish normal posture or increase amount of muscle use with acupuncture and herbal treatment. It is a part of rehabilitative medical department by exercise therapy. The most ideal treatment way for PVL patient is combining both rehabilitative and chinese (acupuncture and herbal) treatment.

Case of infant in general development disorder and Spasmodic convulsion due to PVL

identical twin, early born in 34th week, by 2.36 kg, low weight, PVL diagnosed when he was born, proceeding physical therapy for rehabilitation, visited 6th months. Parents stated that he shows delayed development in movement due to PVL, no eye contact, sometimes eye ball goes down under. These symptoms are considered as typical tonic disorders shown from PVL infants. In 5th months, The child suddenly started to spasmodic convulse. He was diagnosed with west syndrome and started to take anticonvulsant. Spasm got down however tonicity of arms and legs increased after spasm, less eye contact, less coo and gurgle, movement became slow down and cognitive regression has generally shown. So to speak, though spasm controled by anticonvulsant, at the same time, a cognitive regression and tonic disorders began to appear. Child having slow improvement of cognitive regression, tends to show atrophy cortex as times go by, Therefore it is important to prevent cognitive regression at early stage and to make it normalized. However in case of tonic disorders, as it does not exhibit a regressive change yet, we considered we still have a time relatively. We applied everyday acupuncture treatment together with highly concentrated dietary therapy in order to control mental retardation and regression first. In two days, child responded improvement reaction. Parents stated that they found brightness from child eye and there was less stiffness from both shoulders. In third day, child's babbling and smiling action has been increased and legs became soften, too.In the beginning stage of cognitive regression, response to treatment used to come faster and child shows faster reaction, better results we see afterward. we continued intensively treatment for about two months and the child became normalized and maintain stable condition. Compare to his twins brother who is in normal range , there has been no big difference in cognitive development. Basded on stable cognitive development stage, we applied new nutrition focused on releasing stiffness with continuing acupuncture treatment. Parents stated later that they stopped to feed anticonvulsant by their own decision. In 5th months, brain wave test results was favorable and stabl. And in 7th months, both legs released as much as child can cross hiss legs and we can hardly find any stiffen action from upper body We think acupuncture treatment remarkably works to release stiffness more than any other treatment therapy. If child receive continuously both acupuncture and rehabilitation treatment together, child will be able to walk normally as well as do normal daily life.