What is Motor Neurone Disease and Do Sportspeople More Likely to Receive a Diagnosis?
Motor neurone disease affects nerves located in the cerebrum and spine, which tell your muscle tissue how to function.
This leads them to weaken and become rigid over time and usually affects how you walk, speak, consume food and respire.
It is a relatively rare condition that is most frequent in individuals above age fifty, but adults of any age can be impacted.
A person's lifetime risk of developing MND is 1 out of 300.
About five thousand adults in the UK are living with the disease at any one time.
Researchers are not sure the cause of MND, but it is likely to be a combination of the genes - or inherited characteristics - you inherit from your mother and father when you are born, and other lifestyle factors.
For up to 10% of individuals with MND, specific genes play a much larger role.
Typically there is a hereditary background of the disease in these cases.
Identifying the Early Symptoms of the Condition?
MND impacts each person uniquely.
Not everyone has the same symptoms, or encounters them in the identical sequence.
The condition can advance at varying rates too.
Among the most common signs are:
- muscle weakness and muscle spasms
- rigid articulations
- problems with your speech
- complications involving ingesting, consuming food and taking fluids
- reduced cough reflex
Does There Exist a Treatment?
No cure, but there is optimism coming from treatments focused on various types of MND.
MND is not a single illness - it is actually several that result in the demise of motor neurones.
A new drug known as tofersen is effective in only one in 50 individuals, however it has been demonstrated to slow - and in certain instances even undo - some of the symptoms of MND.
It has been referred to as "absolutely groundbreaking" and a "real moment of hope" for the whole disease.
Although the medication has recently been approved in the European Union, it is not currently accessible in the UK.
Just one drug presently approved for the management of MND in the UK and approved by the NHS.
Riluzole may slow down the progression of the condition and increase survival by a few months, but it cannot repair harm.
Determining Life Expectancy for MND?
Some people can live for many years 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 progresses quickly and life expectancy is just a few years.
According to the charity MND Association, the condition kills a one-third of people within a twelve months and over 50% within 24 months of identification.
As the nerve cells stop working, ingestion and respiration become increasingly difficult and numerous individuals need nutritional support or breathing apparatus to help them remain living.
Do Sports Professionals At Greater Risk to Be Diagnosed?
The exact cause has not yet been found, but top-level sportspeople seem disproportionately affected by MND.
Two studies from 2005 and 2009 showed that soccer players have an increased risk of developing MND.
Research from 2022 by the University of Glasgow including four hundred ex- Scotland rugby union players determined they had an increased risk of developing the disease.
Scientists additionally discovered that rugby players who have suffered multiple concussions have physiological variations that could render them more prone to developing MND.
The MND Association recognizes there is a "correlation" between contact sports and MND.
It noted that while the athletes studied were had a greater chance to acquire MND, it did not show the sports directly caused the condition.
The charity also emphasises that "reported MND cases in this research is remains quite small, and so determining there is a certain elevated chance could be misinterpreted if this is simply a grouping due to statistical coincidence".
Multiple prominent sports figures have been identified with the condition in recent years.
These include former rugby players, footballers, and cricket athletes.
In the United States, baseball player Lou Gehrig succumbed to the disease aged 39.
