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Motor neurone disease impacts nerve cells located in the cerebrum and spinal cord, that instruct your muscles how to function.

This leads them to weaken and stiffen over time and typically impacts your walking, talk, consume food and breathe.

This is a relatively rare condition that is most frequent in people above age fifty, but grown-ups of all ages can be affected.

A person's lifetime risk of developing MND is one in 300.

Approximately 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 probable to be a combination of the genes - or inherited characteristics - you get from your mother and father when you are born, and additional lifestyle factors.

In as many as one in 10 people with MND, specific genes are far more significant.

There is usually a hereditary background of the disease in these cases.

Identifying the Early Symptoms of the Condition?

MND affects everyone differently.

Not everyone has the same symptoms, or encounters them in the same order.

The condition can progress at varying rates too.

Some of the most common indicators are:

• muscle weakness and muscle spasms
• rigid articulations
• difficulties in how you speak
• issues with swallowing, consuming food and taking fluids
• reduced cough reflex

Does There Exist a Cure?

There is no cure, but there is optimism coming from therapies targeted at different forms of MND.

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

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

It has been referred to as "truly remarkable" and a "significant point of hope" for the whole disease.

Even though the drug has recently been approved 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 may slow down the advancement of the disease and prolong life by a few months, but it cannot repair harm.

Determining Life Expectancy for MND?

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

But for most, the illness advances rapidly and life expectancy is just a few years.

According to the non-profit MND Association, the disease kills a one-third of individuals within a year and more than half within two years of diagnosis.

As the nerve cells cease functioning, swallowing and respiration become more challenging and many people need feeding tubes or respiratory aids to help them remain living.

Are Athletes At Greater Risk to Be Diagnosed?

The exact cause has not been identified, but elite athletes appear overrepresented by MND.

A pair of research projects from 2005 and 2009 showed that professional footballers have an elevated chance 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 experienced repeated head injuries have biological differences that could render them more prone to contracting MND.

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

It added that while the athletes studied were had a greater chance to develop MND, it did not prove the sports directly led to the condition.

The charity also emphasises that "documented MND cases in these studies is remains quite small, and so determining there is a certain elevated chance could be misinterpreted if this is merely a grouping due to random chance".

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

These include former rugby internationals, soccer players, and cricket athletes.

Across the Atlantic, baseball player Lou Gehrig succumbed to the disease aged 39.