While living with multiple sclerosis is a challenge, palliative care can make a big difference. Some palliative care treatments for MS include medications and techniques relieve muscle spasms, calm nerves, ease depression and manage pain. Palliative care teams treat your specific symptoms, whatever they may be.
MS itself is rarely fatal, but complications may arise from severe MS, such as chest or bladder infections, or swallowing difficulties. The average life expectancy for people with MS is around 5 to 10 years lower than average, and this gap appears to be getting smaller all the time.
Palliative care specialists treat people living with many disease types and chronic illnesses. These include cancer, cardiac disease such as congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), kidney failure, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and many more.
Multiple sclerosis symptoms typically won't send you to the emergency department, but there may be instances when you need care quickly. Symptoms related to multiple sclerosis (MS) are rarely life threatening, but they can be painful and frightening — and may lead you to consider a trip to the hospital.
The study found that people with MS lived to be 75.9 years old, on average, compared to 83.4 years old for those without. That 7.5-year difference is similar to what other researchers have found recently.
your genes – MS isn't directly inherited, but people who are related to someone with the condition are more likely to develop it; the chance of a sibling or child of someone with MS also developing it is estimated to be around 2 to 3 in 100.
Increased need for medication due to uncontrolled pain or symptoms. Shortness of breath. Difficulties performing the tasks of daily living: bathing, getting out of bed, getting dressed, walking, or preparing and eating meals. Increased number of trips to the ER and multiple hospitalizations.
You can receive palliative care at any point after a terminal diagnosis. Some people receive palliative care for years. Your doctor or nurse may mention or suggest palliative care because they want to make sure you have all the support you need.
Although MS can sometimes be a debilitating disease, the majority of people who have it don't become severely disabled, according to the National MS Society.
MS can have debilitating effects, such as paralysis, blindness, impaired thinking and loss of bladder and bowel control. That's because scar tissue forms around the nerve fibers, preventing them from sending electrical impulses to and from your brain.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) recognizes MS as a chronic illness or “impairment” that can cause disability severe enough to prevent an individual from working.
Many people with MS choose to use wheelchairs or scooters from time to time or to do certain things, perhaps because of symptoms like fatigue or weakness, or to conserve energy.
Many people with MS may live for 25 to 35 years or longer after their diagnosis. Survival is improving in MS patients, but chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, depression, or diabetes may lower life expectancy in MS.
Symptoms of MS can be better or worse at different times of the day. For example, spasticity can worsen at night, while fatigue can worsen during the day and after activities. However, this is unique to each person.
Symptoms are considered serious and in need of hospital treatment if they prevent you from eating or drinking, caring for yourself, or walking. Symptoms that may require hospitalization include: Disabling pain. Optic neuritis that impairs vision.
Balance: Balance problems typically result in a swaying and “drunken” type of gait known as ataxia. Sensory deficit: Some people with MS have such severe numbness in their feet that they cannot feel the floor or know where their feet are. This is referred to as a sensory ataxia.
However, this point of view is largely unjustified as roughly only 20 percent of patients will be institutionalised or bedridden 15 years after the condition has developed7. Another 20 percent of sufferers may need to use crutches, a cane or wheelchair to improve and assist with their mobility.
Some of the most common causes of death in MS patients are secondary complications resulting from immobility, chronic urinary tract infections, compromised swallowing and breathing. Some of the complications in this category are chronic bed sores, urogenital sepsis, and aspiration or bacterial pneumonia.
A lot of people with MS experience pain at some time. It varies from person to person and over time, but drug treatments and other therapies can help you cope. Pain can be associated with stiffness or spasms in muscles, or symptoms like Lhermitte's sign, trigeminal neuralgia or optic neuritis.