Early Detection and Management of Cerebral Palsy

At the end of September 1984 Dr. M. Velickovi~ and Prof. H. Prechtl with the help of the International Cerebral Palsy Society organized an international conference on "New develop­ ments in the assessment of early brain damage" in Bled, Yugo­ slavia. I was invited as a speaker at this conference and I went there, curious, but without too much knowledge about the central theme: cerebral palsy. During the conference and a satellite meeting I became impressed by the quality of various contributions and also by the great variety of problems related to the etiology, early diagnosis, management and psychosocial aspects of cerebral palsy. Today, in many areas of biology and medicine, progress seems to require concentration on a very narrow field. As a consequence many conferences are highly specialized and most (young) scientists rightly consider this as most useful for their own work. On the other hand the care of patients and counselling of parents and other close relatives require a multidisciplinary approach. Also, advances in the study of complicated un­ resolved medical biological pr'oblems are often made unex­ pectedly by using ideas, theories, approaches or methods from other disciplines.