--- In Erbs_Palsy_Support@yahoogroups.com, "robert_diorio_esq"
<robert_diorio_esq@...> wrote:
>I aree the results are diffrent for everyone. My daughter who is now
five years okld had the surgery done she could not bring her arm to
feed herslef. The surgery was done at 18 months; we went thur
therapy afterwars and she began using it to feed her slef still
prefers to use the left hand more but will use both hands to perform
things. Still has diffiulty with somethings but is veryself
sufficient with dressingand all.

> The results of a long-term study focusing on the outcome of infants
> that suffered a brachial plexus injury (bpi) or erbs palsy at birth
> were published in the January 2007 issue of The Journal of Bone and
> Joint Surgery.
>
> The study followed up on children that underwent surgery for a bpi
> (mean of 13.3 years after surgery). The researchers studied 1706
> children with brachial plexus injuries sustained at birth that
> required medical intervention between 1971 and 1997. Of these
> patients, 124 (7.3%) underwent surgery on the brachial plexus at a
> mean age of 2.8 months (range, 0.4 to 13.2 months). The most
commonly
> performed surgical procedure was direct neurorrhaphy after neuroma
> resection.
>
> The researchers found that approximately one-third of the patients,
> including all nine with a clavicular nonunion from the surgical
> approach, experienced pain in the affected limb. Additionally, all
> except for four patients used the hand of the unaffected arm as the
> dominant hand. Shoulder function was moderate, with a mean Mallet
> score of 3.0. Both elbow and hand function were good, with a mean
> score on the Gilbert elbow scale of 3 and a mean Raimondi hand
score
> of 4. Incongruence of the glenohumeral joint was noted in sixteen
> (16%) of the ninety-nine patients in whom it was assessed, and
> incongruence of the radiohumeral joint was noted in twenty-one
(21%).
> The extent of the brachial plexus injury was found to be strongly
> associated with the final shoulder, elbow, and hand function in a
> multivariate analysis.
>
> Furthermore, a significant number of the patients continued to need
> help performing activities of daily living and had pain in the
> affected arm, with the pain due to a clavicular nonunion in one-
> fourth of the patients.
>
> As a side note, I want to say that although this study appears to
be
> harsh, erb's palsy can present in wide spectrum of severity. That
> being said, these results seemed to me, to be preformed on the more
> severe cases of erb's palsy. Finally, the most determinant
> prognostic factor predicting the outcome of children affected by a
> bpi appears to be the extent of the primary injury.
>