Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: A Case Study

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Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy evolves via three essential stages: an ambulatory stage, an early nonambulatory stage and a late nonambulatory stage. In ambulatory stages, the affected children have symptoms between two and four years old. Patients have weakness of forward head flexion and a narrow ability to sit. Early in this stage, the affected children can play with their classmates, but after the second grade, they have some serious physical education requirements in which they will need help to continue to the next grade. Additionally, patients get more problems with the walking because of the heel cord and elbow flexion contractures, the respiratory, gastrointestinal and cardiac problems. At the age of nine years old, ambulatory patients lose their motility and they use the braces to allow standing and weight bearing. …show more content…
Affected children who use the braces to stand are able to attend at the aquatic therapy. The aquatic therapy will allow them to stand in the water with the help of braces in order to delay the curvature of the spine. However, they cannot avoid the wheelchair after a few years because they obtain scoliosis requiring orthopaedic consultation and radiological evaluation. The neck flexor, external rotators of the shoulder, hip extensor and hip abductor muscles are the weakest muscles during this stage. In the last stage of the DMD, late nonambulatory, patients have a wheelchair-to-bed lifestyle and numerous serious problems, such as respiratory insufficiency, cardiac problems and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Moreover, they get several orthopaedic problems including the progressive joint contractures and scoliosis, which are worst in this stage of illness. (Jeffrey S. etc