Students Develop Exoskeleton App to Help Patients with Muscular Dystrophy

Muscular dystrophy is a group of nine different diseases that cause pathological weakness and loss of muscle. When a person has muscular dystrophy, they have abnormal genes (also known as mutations) that interrupt the productions of proteins that a person needs in order to form and maintain healthy muscle.

Because there are so many different types of muscular dystrophy, it is hard to give exact symptoms and warning signs, as they are different. For example, some symptoms don’t emerge until adulthood while other kinds of muscular dystrophy develop as early as 18 months.

It is hard to say what the official prognosis is for someone with muscular dystrophy. Some patients lose the ability to walk on their own completely, and as many as 90% of DMD patients need a wheelchair between the ages of 15 and 19. Other patients face major obstacles like breathing and swallowing.