Muscular Dystrophy
What is muscular dystrophy?
There are several types of muscular dystrophy (MD), each progressing at different rates, often affecting the arms and legs, and sometimes affecting posture, breathing, and heart health. MD results in muscle weakness and loss of muscle mass that worsens over time.
What can physical therapists do to help?
Usually, physical therapists and patients will want to maintain or improve strength and functionality. As always, your PT wants to help you live comfortably! Treatment may include passive and active stretching, strength exercises, breathing exercises, and/or developmental skills exercises.
The goals of PT for MD will depend a lot on the patient’s goals. Your PT may want to do assessments to try and predict when changes to care might be needed. For example, trying to tell ahead of time when you might need a wheelchair.
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How long can you live with muscular dystrophy?
This varies a lot! Several types of MD allow people to live fairly normal life spans. However, Duchenne MD is the most common and severe type. Those affected by Duchenne MD historically only lived into their late teens or early 20s. Due to medical advancements and improvements to patient care, people with Duchenne MD now often live into their 30s or 40s. As far as physical therapy goes, this means that most patients seeking care will be children and you will likely need a pediatric specialist.
If you develop MD as an adult, don’t shy away from seeking PT to help. A general physical therapist should be able to treat some of the functional difficulties that come with MD, but you could also try looking into neurology PT specialists in your area.
If you’d like to learn more, these sites have some great info:
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/musculardys/conditioninfo/types
