The diagnosis of MS is based on a combination of neurological symptoms associated with inflammatory plaques on MRI that respond to spatial dissemination (brain, spinal cord, optic nerve) and temporal dissemination (inflammatory plaques of different ages or that appear over time).
Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis
The symptoms are extremely varied because they depend on the area of the brain, spinal cord or optic nerves where the inflammatory attack occurs. Thus they may correspond to:
- Difficulties with sensitivity (tingling, tingling, feeling cold or trickling on the skin, feeling tight or sore)
- paralysis or muscle weakness resulting in difficulty walking
- disorders of balance
- a visual impairment. It results in decreased visual acuity, which can be accompanied by pain around the eye socket, especially when the eye is moving.
In some cases, the onset symptoms may be different between episodes. For example, tenderness in a lower limb and then a few weeks later, visual disturbances.
The symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) disease are very heterogeneous from patient to patient. The spread of lesions over time and in different regions of the brain and spinal cords explains the great heterogeneity of symptoms within and between patients.
The most common symptoms of the disease are motor symptoms. Difficulties in walking, in moving a lower or upper limb, are all external signs visible to the entourage. However, some symptoms of multiple sclerosis, although very disabling for the sufferer in his daily life, are not perceptible and are therefore less well understood and accepted by the patients’ relatives. These include fatigue and fatigability, which affects 75% to 95% of patients with MS. It is both physical and mental fatigue that has a considerable impact on patients’ daily lives. Another of these invisible symptoms is cognitive impairment, which manifests itself in difficulties with attention, concentration, memorization, or executive functions such as decision-making, planning, organization… Finally, mood or emotional disorders may also be present.
In the first few years, in more than 80% of cases, the disease progresses by inflammatory flare-ups (recurrent-relapse form); In most cases, a flare-up takes place within a few days or months and lasts about 2 to 8 weeks. After several years, a number of patients develop a secondarily progressive form. The time it takes to develop this form varies greatly between individuals and could depend on individual repair capabilities. The remaining 20% have a progressive form. The progression and onset of the irreversible disability varies according to the individual’s ability to ‘repair’ brain damage.
