King Fahd Specialist Hospital will hold today a multiple sclerosis awareness program in collaboration with the Saudi Consultative Group for MS at Khobar Carlton Moabed Hotel, from 4 to 8 p.m.
The program, which is being organized by KFSHD Neurosciences Center to coincide with events of World Multiple Sclerosis Day, targets patients with multiple sclerosis and their families in the region to look for ways to educate them about the concept and nature of the disease. The awareness scheme has been designed to demonstrate how MS victims can live with the disease and deal with physical and psychological changes. Specialist physicians in areas such as physiotherapy, rehabilitation & psychological treatment and specialist consultants in multiple sclerosis disease are participating in the event.
Dr. Reem Al-Bunayan, consultant neurologist, director of KFSHD Neurosciences Center and deputy chairperson of Saudi Multiple Sclerosis Society, said that MS is a human central nervous system disease that affects the brain and spinal cord where it damages myelin membrane that surrounds and protects nerve cells. It isolates the electrical nerve signals sent between brain and human body, and causes the onset of symptoms represented in visual disturbances, muscle weakness, imbalance as well as problems in feelings, thinking and memory.
Al-Bunayan added that MS is a global disease that affects both men and women in the age range of 20-50 years. Our society suffers lack of awareness about MS and the importance of providing assistant factors to enable the patients to live easily with the disease. The program thus aims to educate the patient and the family to play an active role by making them aware about the disease and the related multi aspects to support their treatment through physical and mental health.
Al-Bunayan said there are no specific statistics to count the number of affected persons in the Kingdom. Statistics would help the Saudi medical community understand the disease, the prevalence rate and its activity in the Kingdom, she said. The Saudi Consultative Group is in process to develop statistical work.
The latest statistics of the European Society for Neuroscience Diseases revealed an increase in the incidence of this disease in the Gulf region represented in Kuwait, where infection rates have increased from 14.7 per 100,000 people. Al-Bunayan said the role of community must be activated in supporting patients with MS and provide social and career opportunities that fit with the functional capacity of these patients.
“We should not make the disease a hindrance to them for contribution,” she said.
