The Impact of MS

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the ways in which Multiple Sclerosis (MS) impacts on peoples’ lives and in essence will follow the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health by beginning with impairments, or the primary symptoms of MS as Burgess (2002, 76) called them, and move through activity impacts to consider limitations on participation in social and economic activities. The primary symptoms of MS such as bladder dysfunction and muscle weakness are those caused directly by the disease processes of demyelination, axonal damage and loss. This chapter reviews the range of symptoms experienced by people with MS, their prevalence and how over time they begin to affect people with MS (PwMS) not as individual symptoms but more likely collectively as bundles of symptoms either intermittently or indefinitely. The text proceeds to consider three particular symptom groups in detail: physical disablement emphasising walking and falling, fatigue and psychological distress.