Symptoms and Diagnosis
Multiple sclerosis is a disease with a thousand faces. It lacks a typical symptomatic appearance. The symptoms are, firstly, dependent on the location, and secondly on the extent of damage in the brain and the spinal cord. Initial signs are frequently overlooked or assigned to a different disease. It freqently takes years for the patient to report to the MS specialist and for the specialist to establish the diagnosis. The majority of patients experience several symptoms in the course of their disease. Some have absolutely no signs of the disease over long periods of time because the brain is able to compensate the loss of neural conduction. Some symptoms such as unstable gait, tremor or speech difficulties are visible to family members or other persons, whereas others remain invisible. However, invisible symptoms such as fatigue, pain, bladder disorders or cognitive impairments may impose as much a burden on daily life as do visible symptoms.
Understanding biological processes is an important prerequisite for dealing constructively with the disease in daily life. Family members and friends will be able to understand the symptoms when they use the MS simulator.
An unambiguous diagnostic procedure to reliably diagnose or rule out the disease does not exist to the present day. If the doctor suspects multiple sclerosis he makes the patient undergo various examinations. The earlier multiple sclerosis is diagnosed and treated, the better are the chances of treatment.
