Researchers from the University of California San Francisco Medical Center recently stated that, in honor of World MS Day, they want to design more therapies that will help patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) achieve greater independence.
MS, a chronic neurological disorder, is typically diagnosed when patients are between 20 and 40 years old. The disease gradually worsens throughout patients’ lives.
“MS tends to affect people at the prime of their lives, when they are busy working and raising families,” Bruce Cree, neurologist at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, said. “As a consequence of the neurological impairments of the disease, people often lose their ability to work.”
MS symptoms include vision problems, fatigue, impaired coordination and speech problems. All of these symptoms negatively affect patients’ quality of life throughout daily activities, such as bathing and eating.
“New therapies can certainly improve the quality of life for many patients,” Cree said. “Not only have studies found that patients greatly prefer pills to injections.”
As of today, there is no cure for MS. To meet this unmet medical need, doctors and researchers want to do what is possible to improve the quality of life for MS patients, which includes heightening their independence in spite of their illness.
Over two million people in the world have MS. Any small treatment or efficacy progress could change countless lives around the world.
“An MS patient might look like everyone else,” Cree said. “There’s not always something on the surface that tells you they have MS. But their quality of life can be greatly impacted by aspects of the disease that are not obvious.”
