Medical Malpractice
Cerebral palsy caused by a doctor’s mistake due to inattention can have a devastating impact on a child and the child’s family. Lots of insults are added to that injury in cerebral palsy lawsuits.
One cruel argument the doctors often make in these cases is that the child’s lifespan is short, so they should not be required to pay as much money. So they argue that if they screwed up and denied this child and their family the opportunity of a normal life, the defendant should not have to pay so much because the child’s injuries may cause that child to die sooner. If the defendant is wrong and the child lives longer, that is just a cost the family must endure. It is, to put it mildly, a maddening argument.
Providing a definitive life expectancy for children with cerebral palsy is challenging due to the wide variability in the condition’s presentation. Some children may have a life expectancy similar to their typically developing peers, while others might experience a shorter life span due to complications or coexisting conditions. Still, the reality for many children with cerebral palsy is an average or near-normal life expectancy with appropriate medical care and support.
Life Expectancy for Children with Cerebral Palsy
Life expectancy is reduced in some patients with cerebral palsy. Yet, many children with CP have normal expected life spans. The battlefield in a birth injury lawsuit is which category the child fits into for the calculation of medical costs over time.
Of course, we have obvious clues we (and juries) can follow. A child who walks, eats independently, and has relatively preserved cognitive and respiratory function will likely have a different life expectancy from a child who is completely immobile, has serious swallowing problems, and requires assistance with every activity.
There is also no question that survival for some people with cerebral palsy improved over earlier decades. Defense lawyers like to rely on old studies involving patients who were followed even longer ago. But the newer evidence does not support the idea that survival just keeps improving at the same rate every year.
Some of the cerebral palsy life expectancy literature is also written specifically with the medico-legal use of these numbers in mind. That does not make a study wrong. But it makes it even more important to look at who was actually studied, how old the data are, how disability was defined, and whether the patients in the study are actually similar to the child in the lawsuit.
The best predictors of mortality include limitations on mobility, feeding ability, cognitive function, and the presence of serious associated medical problems. Mobility and feeding ability are particularly important.
Other predictors of cerebral palsy lifespan expectancy include:
- Coexisting Conditions: Many children with cerebral palsy have coexisting conditions, such as intellectual disabilities, epilepsy, respiratory problems, or sensory impairments. The presence and management of these conditions can affect quality of life and lifespan.
- Access to Medical Care: Timely and appropriate medical care, therapies, and interventions play a crucial role in improving health outcomes and may affect life expectancy.
- Nutrition and Well-being: Ensuring proper nutrition, hydration, and overall well-being is important for children with cerebral palsy. Adequate support in these areas can positively impact growth and overall health.
- Family and Social Support: A supportive environment, including family, caregivers, nursing care, and community resources, can contribute to a child’s health and well-being.
Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy Life Expectancy
Our lawyers see a good number of spastic diplegic cerebral palsy claims. Life expectancy for individuals with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, like any other type of CP, can vary widely and is influenced by several factors including the severity of the condition, access to medical care, and any associated health issues.
But, in general, many individuals with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy thankfully live into adulthood and have a near-normal life expectancy. Advances in medical treatments, therapies, and supportive interventions have improved care for people with this condition.
The older data showing shorter life expectancy should not simply be applied to a child in 2026 without looking at the child’s actual functional abilities and medical condition.
Deaths Can Change Cerebral Palsy Life Expectancy Estimates
Life expectancy is calculated from survival experience in a group of individuals.
When people with cerebral palsy die at younger ages, particularly people with the most severe disabilities, those deaths obviously affect the survival numbers for the group being studied. But that does not mean researchers simply collect the ages of children who died, add them up, divide by the number of children, and call that life expectancy. We are now getting a lot of new, good cerebral palsy studies that are more sophisticated than that. They use survival curves and actuarial methods to estimate the likelihood that someone will survive to different ages so we are not lumping everyone together in one basket, which is exactly what defense lawyers often look to do in these cases.
Still, the basic idea is not terribly complicated. Who is in the group matters enormously.
If a study includes a large number of children who cannot walk, cannot feed themselves, have profound swallowing problems, repeatedly aspirate food or saliva into their lungs, and suffer from chronic respiratory disease, the survival curve for that population is going to look very different from the curve for children with cerebral palsy who walk, eat independently, communicate well, and have relatively few medical complications.
This becomes important in cerebral palsy lawsuits because defense lawyers will sometimes point to a study showing reduced life expectancy for people with CP as though the diagnosis itself answers the question. It does not. Cerebral palsy covers an extraordinarily wide range of disability. The useful question is not simply what happened to everyone in the study who had cerebral palsy. It is whether the people driving that study’s mortality numbers actually look anything like the child sitting at the center of the lawsuit.
That comparison can change everything. A life expectancy study built around children with profound motor impairment, feeding tubes, recurrent aspiration, and serious respiratory disease may tell us very little about a child whose functional abilities and medical condition are substantially better. The reverse is also true. The statistics matter, certainly. But before anyone treats a survival curve as an answer, you have to look at the people behind the curve.
Quality of Care Matters
Settlements and verdicts in cerebral palsy cases are often substantial. This defense argument underscores why they need to be as large as they are. Money matters when raising a child with CP.
A child with severe cerebral palsy may require nursing care, therapy, respiratory care, feeding assistance, medications, wheelchairs, communication devices, home modifications, and regular medical treatment.
Many of the serious health problems that threaten people with severe cerebral palsy involve respiratory disease, aspiration, pneumonia, inadequate nutrition, and other medical complications.
Good medical care cannot guarantee a longer life. But adequate resources can help a family obtain appropriate medical care, nursing, nutrition, equipment, therapy, respiratory treatment, and other support that may prevent or better manage these complications.
This is one reason future medical care is such a critical part of the damages in a cerebral palsy lawsuit. Compensation aims to give the child the resources needed to receive the care the medical evidence says the child will need.
Cerebral Palsy Lifespan Literature
As we were saying above, there have been great new recent studies of life expectancy in cerebral palsy patients. Here are some of the key articles on cerebral palsy lifespan:
Survival and Mortality in Cerebral Palsy (2019)
The article titled “Survival and mortality in cerebral palsy: observations to the sixth decade from a data linkage study of a total population register and National Death Index” was published in BMC Neurology in 2019 by authors Eve Blair, Katherine Langdon, Sarah McIntyre, David Lawrence, and Linda Watson. The study aims to investigate survival and mortality patterns among individuals with cerebral palsy into their sixth decade of life.
The research is based on a population registered in Western Australia. The study employs data from the Western Australian Register of Developmental Anomalies, which covers individuals with CP born in Western Australia from 1956 to 2011. These individuals were linked to the Australian National Death Index to analyze mortality patterns.
The findings indicate that among the study’s participants, 22% with mild impairments had similar survival patterns to the general population up to the age of 58. However, mortality rates increased, as you would expect, with the severity of impairment.
The leading cause of death was respiratory disease, with pneumonia being a significant contributor. This also ties in with quality of care because respiratory problems, aspiration, and pneumonia are areas where appropriate medical care and support can matter.
The study highlights the need for improved management of chronic respiratory disease because that is where so much of the risk for these children lies.
The study involved an Australian population, so you cannot simply take its survival numbers and automatically apply them to an American child. But the relationship it identifies between functional severity, respiratory disease, and survival is important.
Life Expectancy in Severe Cerebral Palsy (2006)
The article titled “Life Expectancy in Severe Cerebral Palsy,” published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood in March 2006, delves into the complex issues surrounding estimating the life expectancy of individuals with severe cerebral palsy.
The authors emphasize the medico-legal implications of CP and its impact on financial provisions in litigation cases. They highlight the need for rigorous data analysis and actuarial methods to arrive at valid survival estimates for people with CP.
The study addresses the challenges in estimating survival probabilities for individuals with CP, given the diversity of the condition and its complex manifestations. To accurately predict survival, data quality and estimation methods are crucial. The authors argue that clinical experience alone may lead to inaccurate predictions and emphasize the importance of numerical data for valid analysis.
The article discusses the significance of functional disability in determining survival outcomes. The study analyzes cognitive, motor, and sensory disabilities as survival factors. It points out that severe cognitive, motor, and visual disabilities independently influence the probability of survival.
The authors underscore the need for standardized definitions and classifications for CP severity. They stress that excluding syndromes with progressive cerebral impairment is essential for accurate survival estimates. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of confirming the CP diagnosis and distinguishing severe from profound disability.
The study concludes by emphasizing the critical need for clinical and actuarial skills when estimating survival in CP cases. It underscores the importance of valid databases, precise definitions, and rigorous calculations. The authors acknowledge the challenges of missing data, assumptions about risk factors, and varying interpretations of disability severity.
Life Expectancy in Cerebral Palsy: Has the Improvement Continued? (2026)
A newer study examined whether the historical improvement in cerebral palsy life expectancy has continued in recent years.
The researchers studied more than 62,000 people with cerebral palsy in California. After adjusting for age, sex, and severity of disability, they did not find a statistically significant continued improvement in mortality from 2010 through 2019.
Defense lawyers use this study to show that we cannot assume people with cerebral palsy continue to live longer, even if we intuitively believe they do.
But plaintiffs’ lawyers use this study too to show how dramatically survival estimates change based on the child’s functional abilities.
Hiring a Cerebral Palsy Attorney
Miller & Zois handles catastrophic injury medical malpractice cases under a contingency fee agreement. What does this mean to you? This means we never ask you to pay out of pocket for legal fees or expenses. We only receive an attorneys’ fee if we get money damages for you and your child. If, for some reason, we lose the case, there are no fees or expenses incurred by you.
Call us today at 800-553-8082 or get a free online consultation. Our lawyers have a history of success, and we will fight for you and your child every single step of the way.
Cerebral Palsy Lawsuits
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