Osteoporosis and Physical Activity Among NARCOMS Participants

Introduction
Osteoporosis is a bone disease causing thinning of the bones. Osteoporosis increases the risk of fractures (broken bones) of the hip, wrist and spine. Osteopenia refers to mild bone loss that is not severe enough to be called osteoporosis; it increases your risk of osteoporosis. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation (www.nof.org), 10 million individuals… »

Actor Henry Winkler Joins Team of National Patient Advocacy Groups and Allergan to Launch “Open Arms: Raising Awareness of Upper Limb Spasticity” Educational Campaign

To address the low awareness and under-diagnosis of upper limb spasticity, Allergan, Inc. has joined forces with Henry Winkler and a coalition of five national patient advocacy organizations, including National Stroke Association, Brain Injury Association of America, National Spinal Cord Injury Association, United Cerebral Palsy and United Spinal Association, to launch the “Open Arms: Raising… »

Cholesterol Drugs Show Promise in Treating MS

Medications used to treat high cholesterol such as Lipitor could potentially slow the course of multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study involved 81 patients with early-stage MS who were chosen at random to be treated with Lipitor–a popular medication that belongs to a… »

Disorders That Mimic Multiple Sclerosis

Disorders That Mimic Multiple Sclerosis. If your case of MS does not fit the typical pattern, you need to be aware of the other disorders that can mimic… »

High Internet Use of People With MS Could Lead to Innovative Treatment Strategies

High internet use by people with Multiple Sclerosis may lead to some very innovative treatment… »

Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis: Understanding the Differences

Flavia Nelson, MD; Assistant Professor of Neurology, Associate Director MRI Analysis Center––Multiple Sclerosis Research Group, University of Texas Medical School at Houston
 
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex disease. Symptoms can be subtle, especially early in the disease, and vary significantly among patients, which may complicate the process of making an accurate diagnosis. Disease course can… »

CMSC Examines Self-Management in MS

HACKENSACK, N.J., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ — The Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) released a white paper, written by a panel chaired by CMSC member Robert T. Fraser, PhD, of the University of Washington Rehabilitation Research and Training Center in Seattle, Washington, analyzing patient self-management in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to develop recommendations for best practices… »

MS Spotlight: Yoga Therapist Shelley Sidelman

Shelley Sidelman, a Yoga Therapist  RYT 500 and Long Island, NY resident, combines simple breathing, relaxation and stretching techniques to help people with multiple sclerosis reduce pain, stress and fatigue, increase circulation, improve flexibility and enhance their quality of life.
Sidelman’s adaptive and therapeutic yoga seminars have been attended by health care professionals across the country who face the daily… »

Let’s Defeat MS Together: Share Your Story With Others

We would like to hear about your personal experiences of being diagnosed with MS and how you have coped and overcome these… »

MS Facts: Who is Thomas Rivers?

Just before World War II, Thomas Rivers of the Rockefeller Institute in New York City developed an animal model of MS called experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), which is now the best studied model of autoimmunity. While very little was understood about MS at this time, scientists knew that people vaccinated against viral illnesses such as… »

Multiple Sclerosis on the Map: Who’s at Risk?

Researchers and scientists still have a lot to learn about multiple sclerosis (MS). One thing for certain is  that the geographic distribution of this disease around the world is quite distinct.  A north-south gradient in suseptibility to MS exists independent of genetic/racial factors. 
If you take a look at the map, you’ll notice that a significantly higher incidence of MS  is… »

MS Facts: Who is Jean-Martin Charcot?

Jean-Martin Charcot, professor of Neurology at the University of Paris, was the first to complete a detailed study of multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. In 1868, Charcot analyzed some unusual symptoms in a young female patient—tremor, slurred speech, and abnormal eye movements—comparing them to other patients with similar… »

Tysabri Link to Fatal Brain Disease? Don’t Jump to Conclusions

During a recent Morgan Stanley healthcare conference, Biogen Idec Inc., who along with Elan Corp. co-market the multiple sclerosis (MS) drug Tysabri, said it would be premature to conclude that the risk of developing progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) increases the longer patients use the drug.
There has been 13 confirmed cases of PML, a rare and… »

Riding the MS Roller Coaster

Got the multiple sclerosis blues? Don’t sweat it, there are plenty of individuals just like you who are trying to cope with their MS. Getting a definitive diagnosis is just half the battle. You aren’t alone when it comes to riding the MS roller coaster and having to deal with a bunch of annoying symptoms…. »

Understanding Clinical Trials: Why They Are Done and What Is Learned

Gary Cutter, PhD and Brian W. Waldersen, BS––University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama

Introduction
Almost every day we hear about the results of a new trial that has changed the way we think about a treatment, or confirmed what we already know or believe. We learn of clinical trial results so frequently, it is sometimes easy to develop… »

NARCOMS Report: Registry Status in Spring 2009

Tuula Tyry, PhD––NARCOMS Program Manager, Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, Arizona
Introduction
As many of you already know, the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis (NARCOMS) project is now part of a more extensive program entitled Global Demyelinating Disease Registry. This entity currently consists only of Global MS Patient Registry, but is designed to later expand… »

PML and RRMS: A Comparative Study

The objective of this study from Wayne State University is to identify clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features that distinguish progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) from relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS).
Using retrospective medical record review from two urban teaching hospitals in Detroit, Michigan, the scientists studied forty-five patients with confirmed PML and 100 patients with RRMS…. »

Microglia: Professional Scavengers of the Central Nervous System and Possible Targets for New MS Therapies

Samia J. Khoury, MD, Co-director, Partners MS Center; Professor of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
Introduction
In multiple sclerosis (MS), both genes and the environment contribute to disease susceptibility. Environmental contributions likely come from exposure to viral, bacterial, or other antigens during childhood, and may “set the stage” for MS. If… »

Oral Drug Treatments for Multiple Sclerosis on the Horizon

Read about positive results for a two-year Phase III clinical trial using its proprietary oral formulation of cladribine to treat patients with relapsing-remitting forms of… »

MS: A New Theory for Why Repair of the Brain’s Wiring Fails

Scientists have uncovered new evidence suggesting that damage to nerve cells in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) accumulates because the body’s natural mechanism for repairing the nerve coating called myelin stalls… »