MDA Clinic - Joplin, Missouri
Our MDA Clinic at St. John's Neurology department features the only Muscular Dystrophy Association clinic in the Four State region, treating patients with neuromuscular diseases. Our team of physicians also specialize in the treatment of strokes, seizures, migraines, dementia diseases, Parkinsons and traumatic brain injuries. Tests for carpal tunnel syndrome, neuropathy and other neurological diseases are also performed within the comforts of our facility.
What Is Muscular Dystrophy?
Muscular dystrophy (MD) is a group of inherited diseases in which the muscles that control movement (called voluntary muscles) progressively weaken. In some forms of this disease, the heart and other organs are also affected.
There are nine major forms of muscular dystrophy:
- myotonic
- Duchenne
- Becker
- limb-girdle
- facioscapulohumeral
- congenital
- oculopharyngeal
- distal
- Emery-Dreifuss
MD can occur at different ages of a person's life, ranging from infancy to middle age or later. The type of the disease is based in part on when in a person's life MD appears, as well as the severity of the muscle weakness, which muscles are affected, the rate of symptom progression, and the way the disease arises. Some forms affect only males; others affect both males and females. Some sufferers still enjoy a normal life span with mild symptoms that progress very slowly, while others experience fast and severe muscle weakness and wasting, dying in their late teens to early 20s.
The various types of MD affect more than 50,000 Americans. Through advances in medical care, children with muscular dystrophy are living longer than ever before.
© Copyright 2006 MDA Clinic at St. John's Neurology Department