The mysteries that a disease hides
Many scientists point out that the case of Professor Stephen Hawking with his Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) could be treated in a slower way of advancing the disease. According to neurologist at King's College London, Neil Leigh, in a statement to the British Medical Journal, Hawking is an exceptional case, because besides being quite rare that he has survived so many years, it is also true that the disease seems to have stopped in some time.
Anyway, the reason behind the survival of Hawking is only based on theories, due to unknown details of the interventions, treatment or medical assistance received by the physicist. And although he survived so many years, he did not exempt him from difficulties. He could live without permanent help until the 70s, by then his motor skills had worsened and he had to resort to the wheelchair. His most critical moment was in 1985, when he was on the verge of death after suffering pneumonia and he underwent a tracheotomy, which saved his life but left him unable to speak again.
Stephen Hawking, a renowned British physicist who died recently at age 76, at his home in Cambridge, UK, not only had a brilliant scientific career but was a man who kept a deadly disease at bay for more than five decades. The doctors had predicted that he would not live beyond the age of 25. However, the wheelchair and physical limitations did not prevent Hawking from elaborating some of the most interesting theories of modern physics.
After noticing that parts of his body became numb, in 1963, doctors diagnosed Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative motor neuron disease that paralyzes much of the body's functions. Speaking to the BBC, Dr. Mel Barry of the Association for Neuronal Diseases in the United Kingdom said that the fact that Professor Hawking has survived all these years is quite unusual. Barry also added that ALS is a mysterious and complex condition. In most cases, when the person is notified of the diagnosis, they have been dealing with the symptoms for more than a year. And the expectation of survival is between one and five years.
So, the big question is imposed, how did Stephen Hawking survive five decades of a disease with such a poor prognosis for those who suffer it? According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is one of the motor neuron diseases suffered by two out of every 100,000 people on the planet. As said by Dr. Barry, it affects motor neurons, which belong to the nervous system and which, as the name implies, are primarily responsible for the movement of muscles. Without them, the brain can not control the movement of the body and, therefore, the muscles stop functioning properly.
The main symptoms that usually manifest are the difficulty to grasp or handle objects or the wobble when walking. These symptoms were what led Hawking to consult a doctor at 21 years old. In an interview with the BBC, Hawking reported that he ended his career in Oxford, on one occasion, for no apparent reason. However, it was not until he arrived in Cambridge, one day that his father saw him and sent him to see the family doctor. The most frightening of the disease comes later. According to the Association of Neuronal Diseases of the United Kingdom, half of patients with ALS die before 14 months since diagnosis.
Generally, during the final three months, the body suffers serious difficulties in speech, as well as swallowing and breathing. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, the name of the former New York Yankees baseball player who suffered and died at age 38 in 1941.
Returning to Hawking, since he was diagnosed with the disease, the British physicist lived 54 years. A phenomenon for which most scientists do not have an adequate explanation.Given the unusual nature of living five decades after the disease was diagnosed, the neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania Leo McCluskeya wrote in Scientific American that Hawking was the overwhelming proof that this disease has an incredible number of variables. On average, people live one or two years with the disease, however, that average also means that half manages to survive for a longer period of time.The specialist also noted that most patients with ALS die from a failure in the muscles that regulate breathing or a failure in the muscles that serve to swallow. If a patient does not die for one of these two reasons, it is viable for him to live for many years. Therefore, Professor Hawking was a totally impressive case.
To say of Hawking in another interview offered to The New York Times claims to be a lucky man, for being able to work in the field of theoretical physics, one of the few areas where disability is not a limitation to do so. Although he lost his speech, then his metallic and automated voice became a symbol not only of scientific research, but of the struggle to achieve advances in the study of this disease.