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Multiple Sclerosis

Background

Multiple sclerosis is the most common potentially disabling disease of the central nervous system affecting young adults. The lifetime risk is about 1 in 500 in the UK and there is a slight excess risk in females (it affects three times more females than males).

Multiple sclerosis is usually perceived as a disorder of adulthood but children and adolescents can be affected. Although childhood and adolescent onset is not common, it is thought that two point seven to four point four per cent of people with Multiple sclerosis have onset before the age of sixteen. Of this figure, zero point two to one point six per cent are affected before the age of ten years. The relapsing remitting form of Multiple sclerosis is more common in those having childhood onset. Common features in childhood onset Multiple sclerosis are sensory problems, movement difficulties such as poor co-ordination and tremor, and visual problems.

What are the symptoms? View What are the symptoms?

Medical text written November 2002 by Professor A Compston. Last updated June 2005 by Contact a Family and approved by Professor A Compston, Professor of Neurology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK .

 

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