The basic definition of myopathy is a disorder of the muscles usually causing muscle weakness. There are many different types of myopathy; however the three that will be discussed are inflammatory, congenital, and mitochondrial. Inflammatory Myopathy is the inflammation of the muscles. Congenital Myopathy is a delay in motor skills, skeletal and facial abnormalities which are shown at birth. Mitochondrial Myopathies are caused by genetic abnormalities. The history of myopathy is quite unclear; however in 1999 a new discovery of muscle disease in infants was made by Professor Laing. Since Professor Laing's discovery, world-wide identification of mutations in actin, has been shown to cause muscle weakness, sometimes called floppy baby syndrome. (Perkins expert helps revolutionise world view of disease, 2014)
Anyone can develop myopathy. Women get myopathies about twice as often as men. These diseases affect all ethnic groups. (Inflammatory myopathies, 2013) Out of about 100,000 people, 5-10 suffer from a type of myopathy. With most who suffer from myopathies, weakness occurs in the muscles of the shoulders, arms, legs, and the pelvis. In those cases of advancement of the disease, the muscles of the hands and feet may also be weakened. Other signs would be aching of the body, cramping, stiffness, tenderness like the tingling one may experience from muscles falling asleep, and a sense of tightness. Some normal activities would be difficult to do for someone suffering from myopathy like walking up and down stairs or even around the house.
Diagnoses are usually done by a neuromuscular specialist. Generally, a diagnosis involves several outpatient tests to determine the specific type of myopathy. In some cases, it is necessary to wait...
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...milar even though they were all different.
Works Cited
NINDS Myopathy Information Page. (2014, April 16). Myopathy Information Page: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Retrieved May 2, 2014, from http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/myopathy/myopathy.htm
Swierzewski, III, M.D., S. J. (2010, September 14). Myopathy Diagnosis. Myopathies. Retrieved May 3, 2014, from http://www.healthcommunities.com/myopathies/diagnosis.shtml
Perkins expert helps revolutionise world view of disease. (2014, January 1). Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research. Retrieved May 3, 2014, from http://www.perkins.org.au/news/perkins-expert-helps-revolutionise-world-view-of-d
MD, M. M. (2013, January 1). Inflammatory Myopathies. Retrieved May 7, 2014, from http://www.rheumatology.org/Practice/Clinical/Patients/Diseases_And_Conditions/Inflammatory_Myopathies/
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a muscular dystrophy that only occurs in boys. It is caused by the mutation of the DMD gene which is inheritable between families in an X-linked recessive, but it rarely occurs in people from families without a known family history of the condition. Starting from the lower limbs, people with DMD have progressive loss of muscle function and weakness. The DMD gene, which encodes the muscle protein, dystrophin, is the second largest gene. Boy’s muscle with Duchenne muscular dystrophy does not create the dystrophin. 1 in 3500 of the male births are approximately affected by the Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Muscular Dystrophy is a diverse group of disease which involves the weakness and wasting of muscles and leads to many other problems in physiological system. It is because of mutation in gene related to contraction and relaxation of muscles. Although recently no perfect treatment option is available for it but in nearby future cure of this disease will be available due to advanced technology and methods like gene therapy and stem cell technology.
Neurodegeneration is used mainly for diseases that are characterised by progressive loss of structure and function of neurons. There are many neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis that...
ParkinsonDotOrg. "National Parkinson Foundation: Believe in Better." National Parkinson Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.Biology Research Paper: Parkinson’s Disease
DMD also known as muscular dystrophy is muscular disease that occurs on young boys around age four to six. Muscular dystrophy is genetically transmitted disease carried from parent to offspring. This disease progressively damages or disturbs skeletal and cardiac muscle functions starting on the lower limbs. Obviously by damaging the muscle, the lower limbs and other muscles affected become very weak. This is ultimately caused by the lack dystrophin, a protein the body produces.
Myotonic dystrophy, type 1, is a genetic disorder which is linked to chromosome number 19 in humans. The dystrophia myotonica protein kinase gene is located on the q arm of the chromosome at the locus of 13.32. It is an autosomal dominant disorder, which means that the individuals that are affected by this disorder and contain at least one dominant allele for the dystrophia myotonica protein kinase gene. The disorder is caused by a series of repeats of a trinucleotide region that is expanded beyond the normal levels (Musova et al., 2009). The trinucleotide region is a series of repeats of CTG in the untranslated region of the dystrophia myotonica protein kinase gene. The severity of the disorder is associated with the number of repeats the individual has within the gene. Normal individuals tend to have between 5 and 37 repeats while an individual with a very mild myotonic dystrophy may have 50 to 150 repeats, and if the disorder is discovered at the time of birth the individual will have over 2,000 repeats of the trinucleotide region (Musova et al., 2009). Myotonic dystrophy, type 1, affects multiple organ systems of the body and is relatively slow to progress. Myotonic dystrophy, type 1, is categorized by alterations of the beating pattern of the heart, faulty dystrophin proteins, clouding of the lens of the eye, decreased functionality of the gonads, balding, and myotonia (Musova et al., 2009). Myotonia is described as the slow relaxation of any muscle type, which will cause the individual to use extended effort to simply relax the muscles after they have been contracted. Muscular dystrophy causes an individual to experience muscular deg...
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The first historical account of muscular dystrophy was identified by Sir Charles Bell in 1830. He wrote about a disease that caused weakness in boys that progressively got worse. In 1836 another scientist whose name is unknown reported about two brothers who developed muscle damage, generalized weakness. Also damaged muscle was replaced with fat and connective tissue. At the time the symptoms were thought to point to tuberculosis. During the 1850s reports of boys with progressive muscle weakness became more and more common. There were also reports of these boys losing the ability to walk and dying at an early age. In the next decade French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne gave and in depth account of 13 boys who had the most common ...
Medicine.yale.edu. (2014). Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) > neurology | yale school of medicine. [online] Retrieved from: http://medicine.yale.edu/neurology/divisions/neuromuscular/als.aspx [Accessed: 9 Jan 2014].
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, also known as DMD, is the most common form of muscular dystrophy. Muscular dystrophy is a condition that is inherited, and it is when muscles slowly become more and more weak and wasted. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a form of muscular dystrophy that is very rapid and is most commonly found in boys. In muscle, there is a protein named dystrophin. Dystrophin is encoded by the DMD gene. When boys have Duchenne muscular dystrophy, they do not produce enough dystrophin in their muscles. This causes weakness in their muscles. Parents can tell if their child has duchenne muscular dystrophy by looking for various symptoms.
When a person begins to suffer from Guillain- Barre Syndrome their myelin sheath of their nervous system is being attacked and destroyed by the immune system (NINDS, 2011). The myelin sheath begins to lose its ability to transmit signals rapidly and affectively. Since signals are not getting transmitted to the brain fast enough, a person begins to notice fewer sensory responses from the rest of the body (NINDS, 2011). A person wouldn’t be able to tell right away or at all if an item they are touching is hot, cold, or causing pain. There also wouldn’t be good signal transmission from the brain to the rest of the body (NINDS, 2011). There would be signs of the muscles being unable to respond to the weakened or distraught signals they were receiving. Since the myelin sheath is responsible for transmitting the signals from a long distance, the upper and lower extremities would be the first to show signs of muscle dysfunction.
The big picture. Where the two schools of medicine differ is in philosophy. Doctors of osteopathy "treat people, not just symptoms," says Karen Nichols, dean of the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. "The course list looks exactly the same, but the M.D.'s focus is on discrete organs. The osteopathic focus is that all of those pieces are interrelated. You can't affect one with out affecting another." That means paying more than simple lip service to the idea of the "whole" patient: It means that diagnosis and treatment rely on an examination of a person's environment and family and general situation as well as his or her body. Not surprisingly, about 65 percent of the nation's 52,000 licensed osteopaths (by comparison, the country boasts at least 900,000 M.D.'s) are primary-care physicians. The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine has a description of osteopathic training, as well as short profiles of 20 schools, at www.aacom.org. The D.O. programs and their contact information are listed in the directory section of this book.
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