🔗 Share this article

Motor neurone disease affects nerves located in the brain and spinal cord, that instruct your muscle tissue what to do.

This leads them to weaken and become rigid over time and usually affects how you walk, speak, eat and breathe.

This is a quite uncommon condition that is most common in individuals above age fifty, but adults of any age can be affected.

An individual's lifetime risk of developing MND is one in 300.

About five thousand adults in the UK are living with the condition at any given moment.

Researchers are not sure what causes MND, but it is likely to be a mix of the genes - or biological traits - you get from your parents when you are delivered, and additional lifestyle factors.

In as many as one in 10 people with MND, particular genetic factors play a much larger role.

Typically there is a hereditary background of the illness in such instances.

Identifying the Early Symptoms of the Disease?

MND affects everyone differently.

Not everyone has the identical signs, or encounters them in the identical sequence.

The disease can advance at varying rates too.

Some of the most frequent signs are:

• muscle weakness and muscle spasms
• stiff joints
• difficulties in your speech
• complications involving swallowing, eating and drinking
• reduced cough reflex

Does There Exist a Treatment?

There is no definitive treatment, but there is hope stemming from treatments focused on various types of MND.

MND is not a single illness - it is really multiple that culminate in the demise of nerve cells.

An innovative medication known as tofersen is effective in only one in 50 individuals, however it has been shown to decelerate - and in some cases even reverse - a portion of the symptoms of MND.

It has been described as "absolutely groundbreaking" and a "real moment of hope" for the whole disease.

Although the medication has recently received approval in the EU, it is not currently accessible in the UK.

Just one drug currently licensed for the management of MND in the UK and endorsed by the NHS.

Riluzole may slow down the progression of the condition and increase survival by a few months, but it does not reverse harm.

What is Life Expectancy for MND?

Certain individuals can survive for decades with MND, including theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed at the age of 22 and survived until 76.

But for the majority, the illness advances rapidly and survival time is only several years.

Based on the charity MND Association, the condition kills a third of individuals within a year and more than half within two years of identification.

As the nerve cells cease functioning, swallowing and respiration become increasingly difficult and many people need nutritional support or respiratory aids to help them stay alive.

Are Athletes At Greater Risk to Be Diagnosed?

The precise reason has not yet been found, but elite athletes appear overrepresented by MND.

Two studies from 2005 and 2009 showed that professional footballers have an elevated chance of developing MND.

Research from 2022 by the Glasgow University including four hundred former Scotland rugby union players determined they had an increased risk of acquiring the disease.

Researchers additionally discovered that rugby athletes who have experienced repeated head injuries have biological differences that could render them more susceptible to contracting MND.

The MND Association acknowledges there is a "correlation" between collision sports and MND.

It added that while the sportspeople studied were more likely to develop MND, it did not prove the athletic activities directly caused the disease.

The charity also emphasises that "documented MND cases in these studies is remains quite small, and so determining there is a definite increased risk could be misinterpreted if this is simply a cluster due to random chance".

Multiple high-profile sports figures have been diagnosed with the disease in the past few years.

These include former rugby internationals, footballers, and cricketers.

In the United States, MLB athlete Lou Gehrig died from the condition at the age of 39.