MS symptoms and diagnosis

Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. In this video, Neurologist Doug Stuart, MD, from the MS Center of Atlanta discusses common symptoms of MS and the importance of getting an early diagnosis.

Transcript

00:00

MS has many symptoms, and can really affect almost anything that the brain and spinal cord do.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] Common symptoms include blurred vision or double vision, numbness or weakness, trouble walking, pain,

00:22

bladder symptoms, even fatigue and depression. An MRI is typically the way MS is first

00:29

diagnosed because most patients will have these lesions or scars on their MRI. But sometimes it's trickier, and you

00:36

have to do a spinal tap to look for antibodies associated with the disease. And sometimes it's based simply on history alone.

00:43

[MUSIC PLAYING] Secondary progressive MS is diagnosed typically in patients

00:49

who had started with relapsing remitting disease and who are no longer having attacks of MS,

00:55

and yet they continue to have a progression of their neurologic disability-- worsening of gait, worsening of memory impairment, or worsening of some type

01:04

of neurologic disability in the absence of discrete exacerbations. MRIs are used to diagnose the disease,

01:13

but, unfortunately, there's really no distinction between the MRI of a relapsing remitting MS patient and the MRI of somebody who

01:20

has secondary progressive MS. The distinction really exists almost solely on the basis of the clinical presentation

01:27

and how the patient is progressing over time. [MUSIC PLAYING]