Various Forms of Muscular Dystrophy

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is defined as a chronic form of dystrophy that is caused by a mutated gene. This essay critically discusses Duchenne muscular dystrophy as a whole, including all the symptoms, causes as well as treatment.

Ben has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). DMD is a degenerative disease of the muscles. When someone has this disease their muscles do not produce enough dystrophin to stay together. This causes the muscles to deteriorate over time. With proper care, the rate of muscle degradation can be slowed down. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a genetic disorder characterized by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. Muscle weakness can start as early as age three. It first affects the hips, pelvic area, thighs, and shoulders. This disease is still fatal and will be until further studies and research are done to find ways to cure this disease.

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (also referred to as DMD) is a type of muscular dystrophy that weakens the muscles that we need to support our body, body weight, to stand, and to move around. It also can cause you to have scoliosis. Some of the main causes for DMD are genetic disorders, mutations, and DMD has to be passed down throughout everyone in that family for generations. The symptoms you can have if you have DMD are weak muscles, lack of strength, and difficulty walking. DMD is a negative mutation because it affects your muscles horribly bad that you can get a disability of walking and even moving. You need to tell your doctor immediately if you experience any symptoms. If you don't tell your doctor, you may find yourself in a very difficult situation where you can't get up or can't get something you need. When you do talk to your doctor, you will have an advantage of getting the help you need.

Muscular dystrophy (MD) is a rare, progressive disease relating to the weakening of skeletal muscles. There are more than 30 types of muscular dystrophy that are further divided into nine categories. Duchenne MD is the most common and acute form of this condition that accounts for 50% of all the cases. Duchenne MD (DMD) is most prevalent in males, between the ages of 3 and 5 (Norwood, FL, et al. 2009). This X-linked disease occurs for 1 in every 3,500 males, which results in confinement to a wheelchair (Blake et al., 2002). Becker MD (BMD) is a less severe type of this condition. A study conducted in the United Kingdom by Bushby, Thambyayah and Gardner-Medwin, the incidence of Becker MD was estimated to be 1 in 18,450 males at birth

(Chad Haldeman-Englert, 2014) The symptoms usually appear before age 6 and may appear as early as infancy. One of the first noticeable symptom of this disease is the delay in motor milestones; many with Duchenne will take longer to independently stand, sit or walk than average child. (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2013) In toddlers, their enlarged calf muscles causing them to frequently fall over whilst moving. The child may experience occasional pain in the calves and may have some difficulty raising their arms. There is a steady decline in muscle strength between the ages of 6 and 11 years. Most boys are confined to a wheelchair by the age of 12. Muscular weakness and skeletal deformities often leads to respiratory issue. The diaphragm and other muscles that operates the lungs may start to weaken, making it hard to circulate fresh air into the body. The risk of serious respiratory infection is very high. Cardiomyopathy, a chronic disease of the heart muscle that is often a result of the DMD. Most boys will develop this heart disease in their early teens. One third of boys with DMD have some degree of learning disability. Majority of their learning problems occurs in focusing, verbal learning and memorising, and personal interaction. (The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), 2016) Some of the symptoms, such as respiratory infection and cardiomyopathy are common causes of death in DMD

Even though the annual telethon is over, muscular dystrophy—all nine forms—still exists. MD presents with a combination of muscle weakness and muscle wasting.

Muscular dystrophy (MD) is a genetic disorder caused by incorrect or missing genetic information that leads to the gradual weakening of the muscle cells. Various causes lead to weak and deteriorating muscles depending on the type of muscular dystrophy the patient was affected by. However, there are many causes for muscular dystrophy due to the fact that there are thirty forms of muscular dystrophy, which are categorized under several categories. All are ultimately caused by autosomal recessive, autosomal dominant, sex-linked, and random mutations in very rare cases.

Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy is one of the most common forms over childhood muscular dystrophy and primarily affects boys; in total there are 30 different forms of muscular dystrophy 50% being duchenne’s muscular dystrophy (NIH, 2013). This type of muscular dystrophy usually begins to show symptoms around the pre-school age and affects the lower extremities first. By the age of twelve, most boys are in a wheelchair as the trunk muscles being to weaken leading to scoliosis and kyphosis. Eventually the diaphragm begins to weaken and young men with Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy will need assistance with breathing through the use of a ventilator (Naff, C. 2012). According to the 1st Edition of Perspectives on Disease and Disorders Muscular Dystrophy by the age of eighteen most young men would have experienced a cardio myopathy (weakening or the heart muscle) (Naff, C. 2012). Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a chromosome X-linked and genetically inherited neuromuscular disease. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy affects 1 in 3500 new born baby boys. Duchenne’s

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is one of the most severe yet common cases of Muscular Dystrophy that occurs mainly in boys of younger age. Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, who was a French neurologist, was the first to discover this disorder in the 1860s (Emery, 2008, pp. 25). This disease is an X-linked disorder which affects the skeletal system, and causes rapid muscular weakness and heart muscle problems. It’s stated that 1 out of every 3,600 males will be diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (Bushby, 2009, pp.1). According to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, symptoms usually begin to show between the ages of 3 to 5 years old. (pp. 1) Some of the symptoms may include delayed in walking, regularly falling, learning difficulties,

Myotonic Dystrophy is the most common form of muscular dystrophy. It is a chronic, multi-system disorder that is characterized by progressive muscle wasting and weakness. Symptoms include; myotonia (prolonged muscle contractions), the inability to relax certain muscles after use, slurred speech, temporary locking of jaw, cataracts, abnormalities of the electrical signals that control the heartbeat, and early balding and infertility in men. There are two major types of myotonic dystrophy, type 1 and type 2. Many of the symptoms are overlapping, the only differences are type 1 is generally more severe than type 2 and type 1 affects the lower legs, hands, neck and face. Whereas, type 2 affects the neck, shoulders, elbows, and hips. Myotonic dystrophy

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy or DMD for short is a genetic disease that affects the skeletal muscles causing muscle degeneration and muscle wasting. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is an X-linked recessive chromosomal disease, which is caused by mutations in the DMD Gene (Regenerative Medicine). This Disease affects 1 in 3600 boys (Regenerative Medicine). A male born with this disease experiences respiratory dysfunction, trouble ambulation, cognitive impairment, some even experience premature death. Unfortunately, there is no cure for DMD, but there are research studies in the works for different therapies to help reverse this gene mutation and to elevate symptoms associate with this disease.

Muscular dystrophy is a rare disease. 349 out of 2.37 million males aged between five and twenty-four had Duchenne or Becker muscular dystrophy in 2007. Males are more likely to be affected. It is very rare for females to have the disease.

The topic I am researching today is called muscular dystrophy. They’re many forms of muscular dystrophy. For example like there is Duchenne, Becker, Myotonic, Congenial, Limb-girdle, facioscapulohumeral, distal, oculopharyngeal, and emery-dreifuss. The main common thing all those muscular dystrophy have in common are that all of them cause weakness to the bones.

Fist case of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) appeared in 1836 Conte and Gioja described 2 boys with chronic muscle weakness and these boys later developed weakness and hypertrophy of multiple muscle groups (Duchenne, 2015). At the time little was known about DMD and due to the lack of evidences to support his claim and that many scientists thought that Conte and Gioja was describing tuberculosis; therefore they did not receive credit for their work (Duchenne, 2015). Years later, a French neurologist, Guillaume Duchenne will know for his work in faradism and his understanding of muscle disease evaluated 13 boys with DMD and he notice that the muscle tissue loss in the calf is replaced by fat making it look bigger than normal. (Duchenne, 2015).

In this article, the authors discussed the different types of Congenital Muscular Dystrophy: Fukuyama Congenital Muscular Dystrophy, Muscle Eye Brain disease, and Walker Warburg Syndrome. Congenital muscular dystrophies tend to be less common than other muscular dystrophies. Patients that are diagnosed with Congenital muscular dystrophy show symptoms before they are even born. Most rarely move in the womb, due to neonatal hypotonia. Neonatal hypotonia is known as “floppy baby syndrome”, in which patients do not have enough strength in their muscles to move voluntarily. Then once the patients are born, the symptoms only progress and muscles continue to deteriorate.