Understanding Motor Neurone Disease and Are Athletes At Higher Risk to Be Diagnosed?
Motor neurone disease affects nerve cells located in the brain and spine, which tell your muscles what to do.
This causes them to lose strength and become rigid over time and usually affects your walking, speak, eat and breathe.
This is a quite uncommon disease that is most frequent in individuals above age fifty, but adults of any age can be affected.
A person's chance in their life of developing MND is one in 300.
About 5,000 people in the UK will have the disease at any given moment.
Scientists are not sure what causes MND, but it is likely to be a mix of the genes - or biological traits - you get from your mother and father when you are delivered, and other lifestyle factors.
For up to 10% of individuals with MND, particular genetic factors are far more significant.
Typically there is a hereditary background of the disease in these cases.
What are the Early Symptoms of the Condition?
MND impacts each person uniquely.
Not all individuals has the identical signs, or encounters them in the identical sequence.
The disease can advance at varying rates too.
Among the most common indicators are:
- muscle weakness and cramps
- rigid articulations
- problems with your speech
- complications involving swallowing, eating and taking fluids
- reduced cough reflex
Does There Exist a Cure?
There is no cure, but there is hope coming from treatments targeted at various types of MND.
MND is not a single illness - it is actually multiple that culminate in the death of motor neurones.
An innovative medication known as tofersen works in just 2% of individuals, however it has been shown to slow - and in some cases even undo - some of the manifestations of MND.
It has been referred to as "truly remarkable" and a "real moment of hope" for the whole disease.
Even though the medication has recently been approved in the EU, it is not currently accessible in the UK.
Just one drug currently licensed for the treatment of MND in the UK and approved by the NHS.
Riluzole may slow down the progression of the condition and prolong life by a few months, but it cannot repair damage.
Determining Life Expectancy for MND?
Some people can survive for decades with MND, including theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed at the twenty-two years old and survived until 76.
But for the majority, the disease advances rapidly and survival time is just a few years.
Based on the charity MND Association, the condition claims the lives of a one-third of individuals within a twelve months and more than half within 24 months of diagnosis.
As the neurons cease functioning, swallowing and breathing become increasingly difficult and many people need nutritional support or breathing apparatus to help them remain living.
Are Athletes More Likely to Receive a Diagnosis?
The exact cause has not yet been found, but elite athletes seem overrepresented by MND.
A pair of research projects from 2005 and 2009 indicated that soccer players have an elevated chance of developing MND.
Research from 2022 by the Glasgow University including four hundred ex- Scotland rugby athletes determined they had an increased risk of developing the condition.
Researchers also found that rugby athletes who have experienced multiple concussions have biological differences that could render them more susceptible to developing MND.
The MND Association acknowledges there is a "correlation" between collision sports and MND.
It added that while the sportspeople researched were had a greater chance to develop MND, it did not show the athletic activities directly caused the condition.
The charity also stresses that "reported MND cases in these studies is remains quite small, and so determining there is a definite increased risk could be misunderstood if this is merely a cluster due to random chance".
Multiple high-profile sports figures have been identified with the condition in recent years.
These include ex- rugby internationals, footballers, and cricket athletes.
Across the Atlantic, baseball player Lou Gehrig died from the disease aged 39.