The Central Nervous System

The Central Nervous System is composed of the brain and the spinal cord and one of it’s primary functions is to send out messsages to the rest of the body. One chronic illness that affects the Central Nervous System is Multiple Sclerosis. Roughly 2 million people througout the world have been faced with this disease, and “in the United States, it is estimated that 450,000 people are affected, with 10,000 new cases per year” (Goodman & Fuller 772). This disabiling condition has been found more prevelant in the Caucasion race and there is a higher ratio of women diagnosed with MS then men. Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder that can be categorized in four different subtypes: relapsing-remitting MS, secondary progressive MS, primary
Fatigue not only causes physical distress on the body but also mental distress on the mind. "Fatigue significantly impairs a patient's quality of life, bearing negative effects on performance at work and on the patient's social and private life" (Hanken, Eling, and Hildebrandt 1). Since MS is a highly variable disease, the severity of fatigue is highly dependent on the severity of the MS in the individual. MS is considered a progessive disease with no cure so the ultimate treatment is how to best treat the symptoms. There is current research being done to better find the cause of fatigue in MS patients and "several lines of evidence suggest that immune factors play a major role in MS-realted fatigue" (Hanken, Eling, and Hildebrandt 3). Since fatigue is such a disabiling condition the patient is advised to take necessary steps in daily activities in and away from the home to help make the physical stresses of life easier. With taking preventative measures the hope is to postpone the need for assisted devices until hopefully much later in life or not even at
Since depression originates from abnormal chemistry in the brain and MS produces lesions on the brain the two seem to go hand in hand. Studies show that there tends be a “correlation between the lesion load/location of MS and the severity of depression” (Khodarahimi & Rasti 92). Not only can fatigue and depression be experienced from MS but also atrophy of the spinal cord can be prevelant. There have been studies to prove that “SC atrophy occurs at an early clincal stage in MS patients” (Plantone 1). MS attacks the spinal cord through grey-matter demyelantion and axonal loss. Axonal loss is a subsequent result from the harmful effects of the brain and spinal cord lesions formed by MS. Defficiency in muscles, brain activity, and just daily endurance are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discussing the side-effects the body endures from the chronic plague of