🔗 Share this article

Motor neurone disease impacts nerve cells found in the brain and spinal cord, that instruct your muscle tissue what to do.

This causes them to weaken and stiffen gradually and typically impacts how you walk, speak, eat and respire.

This is a quite uncommon disease that is most common in people above age fifty, but grown-ups of all ages can be impacted.

A person's chance in their life of developing MND is 1 out of 300.

About 5,000 adults in the UK are living with the condition at any given moment.

Scientists are uncertain what causes MND, but it is likely to be a mix of the genes - or inherited characteristics - you get from your mother and father when you are delivered, and additional lifestyle factors.

For up to 10% of people with MND, specific genes play a much larger role.

There is usually a hereditary background of the disease in such instances.

What are the First Signs of the Condition?

MND impacts each person uniquely.

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

The disease can advance at different speeds too.

Some of the most frequent signs are:

• loss of muscle strength and cramps
• rigid articulations
• problems with your speech
• complications involving ingesting, consuming food and taking fluids
• weakened coughing

Is There a Treatment?

No definitive treatment, but there is optimism coming from treatments focused on different forms of MND.

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

A new drug known as tofersen is effective in just 2% of patients, however it has been demonstrated to slow - and in some cases even undo - some of the manifestations 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 yet available in the UK.

There is only one drug presently approved for the treatment of MND in the UK and approved by the NHS.

Riluzole could decelerate the progression of the disease and prolong life by a few months, but it does not reverse damage.

Determining Survival Rate for MND?

Some people can survive for decades with MND, such as theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who was identified at the twenty-two years old and survived until 76.

But for most, the disease progresses quickly and survival time is just a few years.

Based on the charity MND Association, the condition kills a third of people within a year and over 50% within 24 months of identification.

As the nerve cells cease functioning, ingestion and breathing become increasingly difficult and many people need nutritional support or breathing apparatus to help them stay alive.

Do Sports Professionals More Likely to Be Diagnosed?

The exact cause has not yet been found, but top-level sportspeople seem overrepresented by MND.

A pair of research projects from 2005 and 2009 indicated that soccer players have an increased risk of contracting MND.

A 2022 study by the University of Glasgow including four hundred ex- Scotland rugby athletes determined they had an higher likelihood of acquiring the disease.

Scientists also found that rugby players who have suffered multiple concussions have biological differences that may make them more prone to developing MND.

The MND Association recognizes there is a "link" between collision sports and MND.

It added that while the athletes studied were more likely to acquire MND, it did not show the athletic activities directly led to the condition.

The organization also stresses that "reported MND cases in this research is still relatively low, and so concluding there is a certain elevated chance could be misunderstood if this is merely a cluster due to statistical coincidence".

Several prominent sports figures have been diagnosed with the disease in the past few years.

These include ex- rugby union internationals, footballers, and cricketers.

Across the Atlantic, baseball player Lou Gehrig succumbed to the condition at the age of 39.