Safety and Efficacy of Siddha Medicines and Methodologies for the Management of Special Children

Abstract

A child who has been determined to require special attention is called as Special Children. Children with multiple disabilities associated with impairments which range across sensory, motor, physical, socio emotional, behavior and cognitive domains known as Special children (Mednick, 2000). Many of these children are diagnosed with conditions such as Cerebral Palsy (CP), Autism spectrum disorders (ASD), Attention deficit disorders (ADD), Attention deficit hyper activity disorders (ADHD), Mental retardation (MR), Cortical Dysplasia (CD), visual impairment, and intellectual disabilities (ID) are coming under the Special children category. Oral Baclofen, Tizanidine, Dantrolene, Diazepam and Gabapentin are widely used for cerebral palsy. Not all patients benefit from this treatment. However this drug was shown to have undesirable other effects such as sedation, respiration problems and muscular weakness, dry mouth, prolonged QT interval and hallucinations. Patients with localized or multifocal Botulinum toxin injections have risk for antibody formation must be restricted. Brahmi Nei has proven its ability in sensory functions connecting parameters such as visual, hearing and vocal in GMFCS, language, cognitive, socio-emotional and behavior skills. Children who received Brahmi Nei alone showed prognosis in above said parameters. Children who received massage showed improvement in motor parameter such as spasticity, muscle tone, GMFCS, gait, stiffness in the joints and fine motor functions of the upper limb. Children who received Brahmi Nei, Thokkanam and Varmam showed significant improvement in all sensory and motor parameters. Hence, it can be concluded that combined therapy has a definitive action as well as therapeutic efficacy on spastic type of cerebral palsy in children in contrast to single therapy. The effects of internal and external therapies may be due individual drugs multipronged action. Further study is required for scientific validation to prove its clinical efficacy in multicentre clinical study.