Children with stiff neck, what to do?

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A stiff neck that can't turn can be caused by an injury or a sign of a serious medical condition. When noticing abnormalities in the child's neck, especially when the child has a stiff neck, parents should take the child to the hospital for examination immediately.

1. Why does a child have a stiff neck?

Stiff neck in children is called "spondylolisthesis syndrome", but the origin of this condition is not caused by damage to the bones of the spine, nor is it due to a nervous system disorder. The main cause of stiff neck in babies is because the structure of the musculoskeletal system has been damaged since birth.
To this day, many medical studies have agreed that: Stiff neck in children is caused by muscle contraction, due to damage to the extensor muscle blocks of the body, resulting in loss of spinal flexion movement.

2. Recognizing stiff neck in children through what signs?

A stiff neck that can't be turned often appears from a young age, however, because the neck stiffness in children occurs gradually without pain or systemic disorder, it is difficult to recognize.
The obvious signs of abnormality is that the child's ability to flex his neck is very difficult and after that, the child cannot run. In addition, there are no other unusual symptoms, the child does not have arthritis.
When a child has the above symptoms, parents should take the child to a doctor to find out the cause. If the spine is examined, the following problems will be found:
The spine is misaligned, the basic movements of the spine are limited. Severe spinal mobility loss, common in all three flexible spinal segments. When children perform side-to-side rotations, the spine is often limited, depending on the condition, the neck can't turn or can only turn a little. With moderate muscle atrophy, the doctor will assign the child to rotate the shoulder and elbow. After a thorough examination, it can be found that muscle contraction is the main cause of movement disorders in the spine and extremities. X-ray did not show soft calcifications, impaired mobility in the lumbar region, neck; There were no muscle twitches, cramps and increased muscle tone.

3. How to diagnose stiff neck in children?

To diagnose a stiff neck in a child, the doctor will order the following tests:
Blood tests: There are no signs of inflammation, in particular, creatine phosphokinase increases sharply and relatively often. Performing electromyography recording, the image received is the waveform due to the loss of motor units, the potential is recorded for a short period of time, low amplitude, rare to see a large amplitude. Muscle biopsy: The obtained results showed that the manifestations were similar to myopathy, the muscle fibers had changes in size (dimensions), signs of necrosis, no infiltrates, and obvious fibrosis. X-ray: Noticing that the spine and bones of the limbs have no abnormal signs, proving that the stiffness of the spine does not originate from the bones.

4. How to treat a child's stiff neck?

For the treatment of congenital myopathy, high-dose corticosteroid therapy is an option. However, there are currently no positive results from this method.
Performing physical therapy for the child by gently massaging the spastic areas is also one way. If parents want to do it themselves at home, they need to do it under the guidance of a doctor until they are proficient before they can do it themselves, unaccompanied. Note, when using this measure, it is necessary to be extremely gentle to avoid possible spine fractures.
In general, currently there is no specific method to completely treat this condition. Genetic and therapeutic studies on restoring spinal mobility in children are still underway and it is hoped that the most appropriate treatment will be found in the future.
In summary, in the first years of a child's life, parents need to pay attention to their children. If the child shows any abnormality, they should be taken to the hospital for examination immediately. The detection of early signs also helps in the treatment of the doctor's disease, and the treatment of diseases always has positive results if detected early from the beginning.
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Reference source: hongngochospital.vn