What causes leukomalacia?
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What causes leukomalacia?
PVL is caused by a lack of oxygen or blood flow to the periventricular area of the brain, which results in the death or loss of brain tissue. The periventricular area-the area around the spaces in the brain called ventricles-contains nerve fibers that carry messages from the brain to the body’s muscles.
What is adult leukomalacia?
Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) is a term used to describe cerebral white matter injury with both focal and diffuse components.
Does PVL mean cerebral palsy?
Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) is a type of brain damage that affects white matter, and that can cause cerebral palsy.
What causes too much white matter in brain?
Having cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar (from diabetes), high dietary fat intake (high cholesterol) and smoking can all increase the number of white matter spots or lesions in your brain.
Is periventricular leukomalacia curable?
There is no treatment to cure PVL. Babies at risk for PVL may need special care after discharge from the hospital. Follow-up may include physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.
Can PVL cause mental retardation?
In the most severe cases, PVL can cause cerebral palsy or other serious physical and mental delays. Only time can tell how severe a child’s disability will be.
Can white matter lesions be nothing?
Studies have found that white matter lesions appear in some degree on brain scans of most older adults but less often in younger people. White matter lesions are among the most common incidental findings—which means the lesions have no clinical significance—on brain scans of people of any age.
Does white matter mean dementia?
White matter has a legitimate position in the study of dementia. The neuropathology of white matter disorders is typically diffuse or widespread, thus disrupting many networks simultaneously and producing a multi-domain syndrome that merits the term dementia.
Is periventricular leukomalacia a disability?
Risk factors include moderate and severe IVH, infections within the womb, asphyxia and a lengthy resuscitation following birth. Most premature babies diagnosed with PVL will go on to have some form of disability, however mild cases of PVL may have no lasting disability.
Does periventricular leukomalacia get worse?
PVL is not a progressive condition so its symptoms do not gradually worsen as the child gets older. The damage to the white matter occurs during brain development and does not continue to expand after birth.
