Symptoms
The symptoms vary greatly depending on the SMA type involved, the stage of the disease and individual factors and commonly include:
- Areflexia, particularly in extremities
- Overall muscle weakness, poor muscle tone, limpness or a tendency to flop (the "floppy baby" syndrome)
- Difficulty achieving developmental milestones, difficulty sitting/standing/walking
- In infants: adopting of a frog-leg position when sitting (hips abducted and knees flexed)
- Loss of strength of the pulmonary muscles: weak cough, weak cry (infants), accumulation of secretions in the lungs or throat, respiratory distress
- Bell-shaped torso (caused by using only abdominal muscles for respiration)
- Clenched fists with sweaty hands
- Head often tilted to one side, even when lying down
- Fasciculations (twitching) of the tongue
- Difficulty sucking or swallowing, poor feeding
- Arthrogryposis (multiple congenital contractures)
- Weight lower than normal
Read more about this topic: Spinal Muscular Atrophy
Famous quotes containing the word symptoms:
“For anyone addicted to reading commonplace books ... finding a good new one is much like enduring a familiar recurrence of malaria, with fever, fits of shaking, strange dreams. Unlike a truly paludismic ordeal, however, the symptoms felt while savoring a collection of one mans pet quotations are voluptuously enjoyable ...”
—M.F.K. Fisher (19081992)
“Not being a K.N. [Know-Nothing] I am left as a sort of waif on the political sea with symptoms of a mild sort towards Black Republicanism.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)
“In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)