The broad category of neuromuscular disorders or diseases covers conditions that involve the weakness or wasting of the body muscles. These problems may arise in the spinal cord, the peripheral nerves or the muscle fibers. Some may be hereditary, while others are acquired. Commonly recognized conditions fall into the categories of myopathies, which are diseases of the muscle like muscular dystrophy, disorders of the junction where the nerve impulses are transmitted to the muscle like myasthenia gravis, and neuropathies, which are diseases of the peripheral nervous system like diabetic neuropathy. Those specific disorders are discussed here.
Symptoms usually start in childhood or early adolescence.
Certain muscular dystrophies can affect other organs, including the heart. The rate of the progression or pattern depends on the type of dystrophy. Some can progress slowly and others confine the patient to a wheelchair within a few years. The most common muscular dystrophies seem to have an inherited deficiency of a muscle protein called dystrophin. More than 50,000 people in the United States have one of the various forms of muscular dystrophy.