🔗 Share this article

Motor neurone disease impacts nerves located in the brain and spinal cord, that instruct your muscles how to function.

This leads them to lose strength and become rigid over time and usually affects your walking, speak, consume food and breathe.

This is a quite uncommon condition that is most frequent in people over 50, but adults of any age can be impacted.

An individual's chance in their life of contracting MND is one in 300.

Approximately 5,000 people in the UK are living with the disease at any one time.

Researchers are uncertain the cause of MND, but it is probable to be a combination of the genes - or inherited characteristics - you get from your mother and father when you are delivered, and other environmental influences.

For up to one in 10 individuals with MND, particular genetic factors play a much larger role.

Typically there is a hereditary background of the disease in these cases.

Identifying the First Signs of the Condition?

MND affects everyone differently.

Not everyone has the same symptoms, or experiences them in the identical sequence.

The condition can progress at varying rates too.

Some of the most common signs are:

• muscle weakness and muscle spasms
• rigid articulations
• problems with how you speak
• complications involving swallowing, consuming food and taking fluids
• reduced cough reflex

Is There a Treatment?

There is no cure, but there is hope coming from therapies targeted at various types of MND.

MND is not one disease - it is really several that culminate in the death of motor neurones.

An innovative medication known as tofersen is effective in just 2% of patients, however it has been demonstrated to decelerate - and in some cases even reverse - some of the manifestations of MND.

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

Although the drug has recently received approval in the European Union, it is not currently accessible in the UK.

Just one pharmaceutical presently approved for the management of MND in the UK and approved by the NHS.

Riluzole could decelerate the progression of the condition and increase survival by a few months, but it does not reverse damage.

Determining Survival Rate for MND?

Certain individuals can survive for decades with MND, including renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, who was identified at the twenty-two years old and lived to 76.

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

Based on the non-profit MND Association, the disease claims the lives of a one-third of people within a year and over 50% within two years of identification.

As the neurons stop working, swallowing and breathing become increasingly difficult and many people need nutritional support or breathing apparatus to help them remain living.

Do Sports Professionals More Likely to Receive a Diagnosis?

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

A pair of research projects from 2005 and 2009 showed that soccer players have an elevated chance of developing MND.

Research from 2022 by the University of Glasgow involving 400 former Scotland rugby union players concluded they had an increased risk of developing the disease.

Researchers additionally discovered that rugby players who have experienced repeated head injuries have biological differences that may make them more prone to developing MND.

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

It noted that while the sportspeople researched were more likely to develop MND, it did not prove the sports directly led to the disease.

The organization also emphasises that "reported MND cases in this research is still relatively low, and so determining there is a definite increased risk could be misinterpreted if this is merely a grouping due to statistical coincidence".

Multiple high-profile sports figures have been diagnosed with the condition in recent years.

These include ex- rugby union players, soccer players, and cricketers.

Across the Atlantic, MLB athlete Lou Gehrig succumbed to the condition aged 39.