🔗 Share this article

Motor neurone disease affects nerves located in the cerebrum and spinal cord, which tell your muscles what to do.

This causes them to lose strength and stiffen over time and usually affects how you walk, talk, consume food and respire.

This is a quite uncommon disease that is most common in individuals over 50, but grown-ups of any age can be affected.

An individual's chance in their life of developing MND is 1 out of 300.

About five thousand people in the UK will have the condition at any given moment.

Researchers are not sure the cause of MND, but it is likely to be a mix of the genes - or biological traits - you get from your parents when you are born, and other lifestyle factors.

For up to one in 10 individuals with MND, specific genes are far more significant.

There is usually a family history of the disease in these cases.

What are the First Signs of the Condition?

MND impacts each person uniquely.

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

The disease can advance at different speeds too.

Among the most common indicators are:

• muscle weakness and muscle spasms
• stiff joints
• difficulties in your speech
• complications involving swallowing, eating and taking fluids
• weakened coughing

Is There a Cure?

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

MND is not one disease - it is really several that result in the demise of nerve cells.

A new drug called tofersen is effective in just 2% of individuals, however it has been shown to decelerate - and in some cases even undo - some of the manifestations of MND.

It has been described as "absolutely groundbreaking" and a "real moment of hope" for the entire condition.

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

Just one drug currently licensed for the management of MND in the UK and approved by the NHS.

Riluzole could decelerate the advancement of the disease and increase survival by several months, but it cannot repair harm.

Determining Life Expectancy for MND?

Some people 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 the majority, the disease progresses quickly and survival time is just a few years.

According to the charity MND Association, the condition claims the lives of a one-third of people within a year and more than half within two years of diagnosis.

As the nerve cells stop working, swallowing and respiration become more challenging and many people need feeding tubes or breathing apparatus to help them stay alive.

Do Sports Professionals At Greater Risk to Receive a Diagnosis?

The precise reason has not yet been found, but top-level sportspeople appear disproportionately affected by MND.

Two studies from 2005 and 2009 showed that professional footballers have an elevated chance of developing MND.

A 2022 study by the University of Glasgow including four hundred former Scotland rugby union players determined they had an increased risk of acquiring the condition.

Researchers also found that rugby players who have suffered repeated head injuries have biological differences that may make them more susceptible 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 caused the disease.

The organization also stresses that "documented MND instances in these studies is still relatively low, and so determining there is a certain elevated chance could be misinterpreted if this is merely a cluster due to random chance".

Multiple prominent sports figures have been identified with the disease in the past few years.

This encompasses ex- rugby union internationals, footballers, and cricket athletes.

Across the Atlantic, baseball player Lou Gehrig died from the disease at the age of 39.