What is progressive muscular dystrophy

I believe everyone is familiar with the problem of malnutrition, but there is another symptom of malnutrition called progressive muscular dystrophy, which is different from malnutrition. Malnutrition can be treated through diet, but progressive muscular dystrophy is a problem that seriously affects health and life safety. The following is a detailed introduction to what progressive muscular dystrophy is.

Muscular dystrophy is a type of muscle degenerative disease caused by genetic defects, with progressive muscle weakness and atrophy as the main clinical manifestations. Due to different genetic defects, clinical symptoms may appear as early as the fetal period or in adulthood. As the name of the disease suggests, the course of muscular dystrophy is generally progressive, but the speed of disease progression varies.

Children with muscular dystrophy usually develop symptoms gradually at the age of 3 to 5 years old, and are usually asymptomatic in infancy and childhood. Some careful parents may also find that their children are slightly behind in motor development compared with children of the same age since childhood. For example, normal children can walk independently at the age of one year old, but children with muscular dystrophy may start walking independently at the age of one and a half to two years old, or may always walk unsteadily, which is often mistakenly attributed to calcium deficiency or weak constitution and is ignored. As the children grow older, the symptoms become gradually more obvious. After entering kindergarten, it is often found that the children have poorer motor skills than children of the same age, their movements are uncoordinated and clumsy, and they cannot run as fast as children of the same age. The child gradually develops abnormal gait, with a wobbly walk, commonly known as duck gait, difficulty climbing stairs, and difficulty squatting and standing up.

When getting up from a supine position, the child often turns over to a prone position, raises his head first, supports his knees and thighs with both hands, slowly straightens his trunk and stands, which is the so-called positive Gower sign. Physical examination of children often reveals gastrocnemius hypertrophy in addition to decreased muscle strength and tone. The hypertrophic gastrocnemius muscle feels hard to the touch and lacks muscle elasticity. This is because it is filled with a large amount of proliferating adipose connective tissue, so it is called pseudohypertrophy. As the disease progresses, the symptoms of muscle weakness become more and more severe, and children lose the ability to walk independently around the age of 12. Afterwards, due to long-term bed rest, it is easy to develop complications such as bedsores and aspiration pneumonia. Due to respiratory muscle weakness or combined heart involvement, people may die of respiratory failure or heart failure at around 20 years old.

Regarding progressive muscular dystrophy, you can now understand it through this introduction. This disease is mainly caused by genetic problems, and the child will show corresponding symptoms due to the cause of the disease. Symptoms may be mild or severe, so parents need to observe carefully and ensure their children receive timely treatment based on their abnormal behaviors.