Cerebral Palsy: Botox helps boy take his first steps

Brave toddler Aiden Farrell has taken his first steps after having injections of the anti-ageing cosmetic drug botox in his legs.

Aiden, three, was born with crippling cerebral palsy and his muscles tightened up so much so he was unable to straighten his legs without feeling terrible pain.

The toddler’s parents Sara and Gevun scoured the internet for treatment and discovered that Botox injections had been used to relieve symptoms before presenting the idea to UK NHS medical management.

Botox injections work by unblocking nerve impulses which restrict his movement - the same way celebrities use it to combat the effects of ageing.

Mother-of-four Sara, 31, from Gosport, Hampshire, said: 'Seeing Aiden take his first steps is something I never dreamed would be possible.

'I noticed as soon as we got home after having the treatment the difference was amazing. 'Usually he would sit on the sofa with his legs bent up but his legs were normal, like ours would be when we sit on the sofa.

'It may sound unusual but if it helps my little boy walk I do not care. It´s about trying to build up strength in his legs and walking more. He is using muscles he has never used before.´

'The difference in mobility is unbelievable.' Aiden has suffered health problems all his young life after being born prematurely at 29 weeks, weighing just 3lb and kept alive on a ventilator.´

Sara added: 'When I was told Aiden had cerebral palsy we grieved every day, especially because we have other children and could see them running around the house.

'It was difficult because we wanted Aiden to do the same things they could do.

'Over time his legs tightened up so much he was unable to straighten them. He would cry with any physiotherapy exercises he was given to strengthen his legs.

'I felt useless because all I could do was massage them to make his pain go away.”

After reading about the treatment online, Aiden was placed on an 18-month waiting list and in December last year was given 12 injections, two in each of his calves, hamstrings and groin.

The family were told there was only a 50 per cent chance of it being successful.

Babies Learn to Walk like Rats

We may be the only animal to move around upright on two legs, but babies learn to walk in the same way that rats, cats, monkeys and birds do.

Francesco Lacquaniti at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy, and colleagues used an electromyograph (EMG) to record the activity of 20 muscles in the arms, legs and torso during walking.

They took measurements from adults, preschoolers, toddlers and even newborns, who take baby steps when supported and made to walk forwards. The EMG picked up two patterns of activity during newborn "walking": one pattern causes the legs to flex and extend, the other makes sure that they move alternately as the baby moves forward.

Things become more complicated by the time toddlers are taking their first steps solo, though. Lacquaniti found four neural patterns at this stage: the two patterns seen in newborns, and two more that control subtle movements, such as shifting the weight from heel to toe before the leg leaves the ground and making sure that the knee bends only after the toes are lifted.

Although even as toddlers we are beginning to move in a way that no other animal does, the motor patterns controlling walking in other animals are nearly identical. When Lacquaniti's team looked at previously published results, they found that newborn rats show the same two patterns as newborn babies. By the time rats reach adulthood they show the four patterns seen in toddlers. Adult cats, rhesus monkeys and guinea fowl also show the four patterns of toddling.

Late development
"During evolutionary history, nature didn't scrap the old hardware," says Lacquaniti. "Instead it was modified and tuned to adapt to our needs."

Human adults differ, though. By adulthood, the four phases have changed subtly in a way not seen in other animals. This might allow us to accommodate complicated arm movements such as grasping objects as we walk, Lacquaniti says.

The results make sense, thinks Sten Grillner of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. We might appear to stand apart from the rest of the animal kingdom because of our unusual posture and the fact that babies take so long to learn to walk – but it's all a matter of perspective.

"In fact, the reason humans take so long before starting to walk is that the human baby is born very early in the maturation process," Grillner says. "If age is measured from conception rather than birth, the relationship between brain size and walking age is linear, and humans follow this relationship closely."

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1210617