Multiple sclerosis is a neuroinflammatory disease that affects myelin, a substance that makes up the myelin sheath, and wraps around nerve fibers or axons. Myelin is necessary for proper functioning of the nervous system. Myelinated axons are commonly called white matter. MS also damages nerve cell bodies which are found in gray matter, as well as the axons themselves in the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerve. (4) As the disease makes progress the brain’s cortex shrinks. Multiple sclerosis refers to areas of scar tissue or plaques visible in the white matter of people who have the disease. The plaques can range from small to large. Plaques are the result of an inflammatory process that causes the immune system cells to attack the myelin. MS …show more content…
Damage to myelin and nerve fibers is caused by overactive T-cells, which are a type of white blood cell called lymphocytes. (4) The course of MS is unpredictable and tends to affect young adults more often such as people between 20 and 40. Women also tend to be affected twice as much as men. However, it can develop in children and older people. Multiple sclerosis is often not diagnosed right away because it shares symptoms with other neurological conditions and disease but symptoms of MS normally include vision problems, weak muscles, numbness, tingling, clumsiness, bladder control problems and dizziness. (3) Later symptoms tend to include fatigue, mood changes, loss of the ability to concentrate, and difficulty making decisions. This is a disease that tends to be caused by genetic vulnerabilities as well as environmental factors. The course for MS is unpredictable because it varies in each person. …show more content…
From the how and why to the treatment, there are so many variables present, it is very difficult to diagnose as well as treat. The disease is often misdiagnosed because it mimics other symptoms. At times it is in the later stages when finally diagnosed. This disease also has many forms, so treatments are sometimes experimental until the form is identified. There are also many triggers once a patient has been diagnosed with MS and these are hard to treat. Because of the many variations of this disease, the many symptoms, triggers, and responses to medications, and the varied studies on patients with varied symptoms, MS remains a very mysterious disorder of the neuro-immune
Multiple sclerosis (MS) involves an autoimmune process that develops when a previous viral insult to the nervous system has occurred in a genetically susceptible individual. B lymphocytes, plasma cells, and activated T cells, along with proinflammatory cytokines, cause inflammation, oligodendrocyte injury and demyelination. Early inflammation and demyelination lead to irreversible axonal
MS is usually occurs at age of 15 to 55 with the average onset at about 30 years of age. Women are twice more likely than men to develop this debilitating autoimmune disease (Love, 2006). Due to the heterogeneity of the disease, where it can affects many sites of the CNS such as the brain cortex, brainstem, spinal cord as well as the optic nerve, thus the clinical symptoms of MS are widely ranged.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. MS affects approximately 3.0 million people globally, with about 300,000 cases in the United States. Twice as many women as men have MS. The average ages for onset of MS is 20-40 years. In MS, cells in the immune system attack and destroy myelin, the fatty tissue surrounding nerve cells (http://www.phylomed.com/MS.html). Scar tissue replaces the myelin, interfering with the transmission of nerve signals and leading to numbness, fatigue, spasticity, loss of muscle control, and various other debilitating symptoms. There are four broad theories
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) a disease which the immune system attacks the protective sheath also known as the myelin that covers the nerves. Damages myelin disrupts the communication between the brain and the rest of the body. The nerves itself may weaken, process that is currently irreversible.
1. Main point 2: So now that I have talked about what MS is, let us continue on to what the symptoms are and how it can be diagnosed. In most cases, the symptoms generally appear between the ages of 20 and 40 and affect more than twice as many women as men. Common indicators of MS are fatigue, dizziness, numbness and tingling, weakness, blurred vision, heat sensitivity, slurred speech, problems with memory and concentration, loss of balance and more. Sometimes the symptoms disappear completely and the person regains lost functions or sometimes a change in their life causes the symptoms to resurface and return stronger than ever. In my observations, my Dads’ MS is strongest in hot weather and during times of high stress. The symptoms normally vary from person to person, which makes it hard to diagnose. There are currently no lab tests that can be done to rule out or confirm MS, but MRI’s can help reach a strong diagnosis. MS is not considered a fatal disease, but many people struggle to live as productively as they desire, often facing many limitations.
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a disease of the central nervous system. The central nervous system is made up of the brain and spinal cord. Both have nerve fibers that are wrapped in a myelin sheath. In MS, the myelin sheath becomes inflamed and gradually is destroyed. With the destruction of the myelin sheath comes an array of symptoms that may include numbness or tingling, balance problems, weakness, muscle spasms, and blurred vision.
Multiple Sclerosis, commonly known as MS is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. Scientists have been studying MS since the 19th century. In MS, the body’s immune system produces cells and antibodies that attack myelin in your brain which is essential for the nerves in your brain and spinal cord to conduct electricity to perform its function. The attack on myelin results in vison loss, paralysis, numbness, muscle weakness, difficulty walking, stiffness, spasms, and bladder and bowel problems. MS has varying degrees of severity and affects people between the ages of 20-50, mostly women. Although there are treatments, there is no cause and cure yet.
Multiple Sclerosis is a disease that attacks the myelin coating over the nerve receptors in your brain and spinal cord. Myelin is a fatty material that coats and protects the nerves in your brain. These nerves send signals to the rest of your body enabling
Multiple sclerosis is characterized by inflammation, demyelination, and axonal damage in the brain and spinal cord with a loss of myelin that covers the axons. As the myelin sheath regenerates, scar tissue forms, which looks like plaques on magnetic resonance imaging scans. Multiple sclerosis arises when immune-mediated inflammation activates T cells and causes the T cells and immune mediators to cross the blood-brain barriers into the CNS and attack oligodendrocytes (ie, a type of neuroglial cell with dendritic projections that coil around axons of neural cells). When the oligodendrocytes are attacked, the myelin sheath is replaced by scar tissue, which forms throughout the CNS. As a result of damage to the myelin sheath, the ability to transmit and conduct nerve impulses along the spinal cord and in the brain is interrupted, leading to muscle weakness, fatigue, loss of coordination, balance impairment, and cognitive and visual disturbance (DeLuca & Nocentini, 2011). This disease is characterized by unpredictable remissions that occur over several years. During periods of remission, the myelin sheath usually regenerates and symptoms may resolve, but the myelin cannot be completely repaired. As the disease progresses, the myelin sheath is destroyed and nerve impulses become much slower or absent and symptoms worsen. When degeneration exceeds self-repair ability, permanent disability results. There are four defined clinical types of
eyes, or difficulty getting your legs to walk, or holding on to a wall while ambulating due to severe major cramping and muscle stiffness, these are the real expressions of Multiple Sclerosis. These neurological symptoms were first identified in the early 14th and 15th centuries. The immune system attacks the myelin of the brain & spinal cord causing a cessation or misinterpretation of communication with the rest of the body. Due to this destruction or damage to the myelin, scar tissue forms and there central nervous system cannot communicate with the body effectively. This is the mechanics of Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that affects many people across the globe.
There is no cure for Multiple Sclerosis (Mayo Clinic, 2017). Most treatment is focused on improving quality of life by treating symptoms and slowing its progression. There are a few drugs to help slow progression, most of which are for relapsing-remitting MS (Mayo Clinic, 2017). In March of this year, the FDA approved the first drug for primary-progressive MS (FDA, 2017), called ocrelizumab, which slows the advancement of disability (Mayo Clinic, 2017). Ocrelizumab may cause infusion related reactions, such as hives, shortness of breath, fever, etc, and may lead to an upper respiratory tract infection (FDA, 2017). Acute relapses are treated with corticosteroids to reduce nerve inflammation, a traditional and approved method of treatment. (NIH, 2013). To treat symptoms, those with MS may go to physical therapy to help strengthen muscles and manage gait problems (Mayo Clinic, 2017). They may also use muscle relaxers to treat extremely painful
More than 400,000 of people are diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in America and approximately 2.3million cases in the world (Multiple Sclerosis International Federation, 2013). Multiple Sclerosis is one of the most common neurological diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) (Wei, 2014). The myelin sheath that wraps around the nerve fibers is being attacked by our body immune system, which affects the body’s actions and responses as cell-to-cell communication to and from the brain is delayed (Mendes, 2016). The disease commonly affects people between the age of 20 to 50, and women are more likely than men to develop the disease (Multiple Sclerosis International Federation, 2013).
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a disease of the central nervous system. The central nervous system is made up of the brain and spinal cord. Both have nerve fibers that are wrapped in a myelin sheath. In MS, the myelin sheath becomes inflamed and gradually is destroyed. With the destruction of the myelin sheath comes an array of symptoms that may include numbness or tingling, balance problems, weakness, muscle spasms, and blurred vision.
Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable, potentially disabling disease of the central nervous system that can affect the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. Multiple Sclerosis can range from relatively benign to disabling to devastating. The disease is considered an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues causing damage to the myelin sheath, which covers the nerve fibers, and causes communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body and ultimately cause the nerves to deteriorate or become permanently damaged. When any part of the myelin sheath is damaged or destroyed the nerve impulses that travel back and forth to the brain and spinal cord are interrupted, this produces a range of different symptoms.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a neurologic disease that affects the Central Nervous System (CNS) through cellular immune response and the demyelination of CNS white matter (McCance et al., 2014, pp. 630–633). The initial causes of MS are unknown however, it is believed that it could possibly be due to an immune response to an initiating infection or an autoimmune response to CNS antigens on the myelin itself (Brück, 2005) (Miljković and Spasojević, 2013). MS is a result of the degradation of the myelin sheath surrounding neurons and therefore disrupts the transmission of action potentials along these cells. MS can display itself in the form of symptoms ranging from muscle weakness to trouble with sensation and coordination (NHS, 2016). The degradation of myelin leads the body to attempt to remyelinate the neurons, a process that in turn leads to the thickening of the cell by glial cells and this causes lesions to form (Chari, 2007). It is this thickening (sclerae) from which the disease gets its name. Sufferers of MS can either have a relapsing type of MS, in which there are episodes that lead to the worsening of symptoms for a period of time, or a progressive type of MS where symptoms gradually progress and worsen (McCance et al., 2014, pp. 630–633).