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About Motor Neurone Disease

What is MND?

  • Motor Neurone Disease (MND) describes a group of related diseases affecting the motor nerves (neurons) in the brain and spinal cord, which pass messages to the muscles telling them what to do.
  • The condition causes increasing loss of mobility in the limbs, and difficulties with speech, swallowing and breathing, while leaving the mind undamaged.
  • Sufferers - while perfectly conscious - are trapped in their bodies, unable to speak or move.
  • It is a fatal condition for which there is currently no treatment or cure.

Who is impacted by MND?

Image of Stephenn Hawking
  • In the UK, 35 people die from MND every week and every week 35 people are diagnosed with MND.
  • Around 7 in every 100,000 have the condition in the UK. It usually starts in middle age. Men are about twice as likely as women to be affected.
  • The average sufferer will live two years, only 10% will survive more than five years.
  • Famous people who have died from MND include actor David Niven and footballer/England Manager Don Revie.
  • Physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking, is unusual among MND sufferers in that he has survived with the condition for three decades. He uses a computer generated voice to communicate.

How long has MND been around?

  • The French Neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot first described Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in 1874.
  • Figures show that between 1999 and 2004, 6000 people died from MND and 4200 from HIV/AIDS. During this time, £45 million was spent on HIV/AIDS and £8 million on MND.

How does it affect sufferers?

  • MND is a devastating, progressive disorder that destroys the muscle-controlling nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
  • Symptoms usually develop very gradually, manifesting themselves at first in feelings of tiredness, clumsy fingers and a weak grip.
  • After a while simple actions like turning a door handle can become increasingly difficult and problems with swallowing and speech can soon follow.
  • As MND progresses the chest muscles can also become affected, making breathing difficult.
  • However, intellect, memory, the senses, sexual function, and bladder and bowel control normally remain completely unaffected.
  • Doctors do not know why people develop MND.