Multiple Sclerosis is here but are doctors ready?
Multiple Sclerosis is here but are doctors ready?
Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A 30-year-old mother first noticed her legs felt numb. The next
week she had bowl and bladder problems. Now she is wheelchair-
bound and unable to take care of her children. She is nursed like
an infant.
Six months earlier, she had a blurred vision in her right eye
until she went nearly blind but then her sight miraculously
returned. The same problem later occurred in her left eye but
again disappeared after two weeks.
However, it was too late for the women when a doctor finally
diagnosed her with Multiple Sclerosis or MS. The illness -- which
is relatively uncommon here -- is a variable life-long condition,
affecting multiple sites of the central nervous system, leading
to lesions and scars -- sclerosis -- within the brain and/or the
spinal cord.
MS is typically seen in people -- women are twice as likely as
men to get the condition -- between the ages of 20 and 40. The
average onset of the condition is at 30 years. Recent data shows
that MS affects 2.5 million people worldwide, with most people in
North America and Europe.
Senior neurologist with the University of Indonesia's School
of Medicine, Jusuf Misbach, said MS was not often diagnosed here
or in other Asian countries because it was generally thought of
as a Caucasian illness. However, the disease did exist, he said.
"There is MS here, although we don't know yet what the figures
are, due to a lack of public awareness and also the fact that
many doctors do not go as far as to diagnose particular symptoms
as MS."
Jusuf cited reports from Japan, Thailand and the Philippines
where a number of MS patients were found, with the disease
typically attacking their spinal cord. These reports opened the
possibility that the disease would be found in Indonesia, he
said.
"The woman is one of two cases I've been handling," he said.
"For Asians, the common symptoms of MS start with an optical
neurotic attack on one of the eyes. The condition can improve in
days or weeks but then reoccur in the other eye in the same
pattern."
"This onset of symptoms can already be treated as MS. But most
doctors sometimes diagnose it as other diseases so when the
disease has spread to other parts of the nervous system, it is
too late to do anything," Jusuf said to a gathering last week.
The common symptoms in people with MS include abnormal
sensations -- some people with MS experience strange sensations,
such as feeling cold, numbness, tingling or itching -- visual
disturbances, motor dysfunction, problems with balance, bowel and
bladder problems, sexual problems and pain.
"These symptoms can also lead to depression," Jusuf said.
Most of the symptoms could be alleviated by a range of
therapies and drugs and people needed to contact their physicians
to find the best possible treatments, he said.
While some symptoms are seen often, others are only rarely
noticed. However, even when somebody was asymptomatic, MS might
still be silently active, Jusuf said.
Although there has been a great amount of research into the
disease, no one knows exactly what triggers MS.
While there is a hypotheses that viruses may be responsible
for MS, there was no reliable scientific proof of this as yet,
Jusuf said.
"Researchers nowadays are convinced that MS is most likely
caused by a combination of factors such as climate, latitude,
race, industrialization (related to toxic chemicals), age,
genetic disposition, viruses and socioeconomic status," he said.
"Some people certainly seem to be more susceptible to MS
because of their genetic disposition."
Because the disease could often be arrested if diagnosed
early, it was important that the public and especially doctors
learned to recognize it, Jusuf said.
When asked if he believed doctors here were currently able to
quickly identify diseases like MS, he was hesitant to respond.
"I don't think we are ready. But we have to be ready," he
said.
Jusuf pointed doctors and patients to a website www.ms-
gateway.com, which is full of information about MS, and noted
that Germany's pharmaceutical company Schering had also published
15-paged comic book Yang Harus Diketahui Semua Orang Tentang
Multipel Sklerosis or What All People Must Know About Multiple
Sclerosis, distributed free to all those who wanted to know more
about MS.
"People can get this booklet at the neurology center in the
Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, and some neurologists' clinics," the
company's president director, Uwe Dalichow, said on the sidelines
of the briefing.