ADOLESCENTS with cerebral palsy rate their quality of life on a par with their able-bodied peers, according to new research by North-East academics.

Lead author, Allan Colver, professor of community child health at Newcastle University, said: “Our results are encouraging. Across ten different areas of life, adolescents with cerebral palsy only ranked their quality of friend and peer relationships as on average lower than adolescents in the general population, challenging the widespread perception that adolescents with disabilities have unhappy, unfulfilled lives.”

Cerebral Palsy is the most common neurodevelopmental physical disability, affecting one in every 400 people in the UK.

The researchers selected a representative sample of 431 adolescents with cerebral palsy aged 13 to 17 years across nine European regions and asked them to fill in a questionnaire.

Results published in The Lancet revealed that adolescents with cerebral palsy rated their overall quality of life (QoL) as comparable to that of their able-bodied peers.

They also reported better QoL in five areas of life than adolescents in the general population - moods and emotions, self-perception, autonomy, relationships with parents, and school life.

Only in the category of social support available from friends and peers did adolescents with cerebral palsy report significantly lower QoL than their able-bodied peers.

For adolescents with cerebral palsy, more severe motor impairment was associated with poorer QoL in just three categories—moods and emotions, autonomy, and social support from peers.

Pain in childhood or adolescence also reduced adolescents' QoL across eight areas of life.

According to Prof Colver: “Clinicians should intervene early in childhood to ameliorate extremes of pain, psychological problems, and parenting stress.

"Attention should be directed to helping children with cerebral palsy, especially those who are more severely impaired, to maintain friendships with peers, and to develop new friendships.”