The syndrome differentiation of cerebral palsy should first differentiate whether the disease is congenital or postnatal. The kidney, the congenital base of life, controls the storage of renal essence and production of bone marrow. Prenatally the fetus is congenitally weak and the renal essence and qi are insufficient due to deficiency of parental qi and blood or the mother's diseases during pregnancy, giving rise to sluggish expression, hypophrenia, paralysis of limbs, etc.

Therefore, the patients with diseases caused by congenital factors mostly belong to asthenia of the liver and kidney as well as deficiency of renal essence and blood. The spleen, the postnatal base of life, is the source of producing and transforming qi and blood. Improper nursing, or improper diet, or prolonged gastrointestinal diseases make qi and blood lack of the source, nutrient insufficient, giving rise to lassitude, flaccidity and hypodynamia of limbs.

Thus, postnatal insufficiency largely pertains to deficiency of qi and blood and cerebral loss of nourishment. Secondly, asthenia should be differentiated from sthenia. Though the causes of disease may be congenital and postnatal, the pathogenesis includes deficiency and excess; though most causes belong to deficiency syndromes like deficiency of renal essence, yin deficiency of the liver and kidney and qi deficiency of the spleen, a few ones pertain to excess syndromes such as blood stasis obstructing cerebral collaterals and internal stagnation of phlegm and dampness, which should be differentiated.