La multiple sclerosis (EM) affects 100 of each 100.000 people on the islands. This disease is one of the most common neurological disorders and cause of disability in young adults.
In the world there are 2,3 millions of people with MS. The majority of those affected by MS are diagnosed among the 25 and the 31 years of age, being the number of women affected twice that of men. Its causes are unknown and there is no cure for this disease, although there are many treatments to help affected people to improve their symptoms. In each person the symptoms are different, but some of the most common symptoms are blurred vision, fragile limbs, tingling sensation, instability, memory problems and fatigue.
Being a disease that is diagnosed at such an early age, the working life of those affected changes radically. Specifically, approximately half of the patients can continue to work 10 years after diagnosis.
For some people, the EM it is characterized by periods of remission and relapse (meaning that it improves for a while but then it can attack from time to time), while for others it has a progressive pattern (meaning that it gets worse steadily over time). Some people may feel healthy for many years after the diagnosis, while others may be seriously weakened very quickly. Above all, MS makes life unpredictable for everyone.