As the world ob­serves World Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis Day to­day, the Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go is seek­ing to shine a spot­light on the con­di­tion, which many peo­ple still know lit­tle about, de­spite the life-chang­ing chal­lenges it presents for those af­fect­ed.

Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis (MS) is an in­cur­able dis­ease of the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem that af­fects the brain and spinal cord and is of­ten de­scribed as un­pre­dictable, with symp­toms dif­fer­ing wide­ly from one per­son to an­oth­er and no cer­tain­ty about how the ill­ness will progress.

For some, the dis­ease caus­es fa­tigue, mem­o­ry laps­es, blurred vi­sion or dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing. Oth­ers may ex­pe­ri­ence mo­bil­i­ty is­sues se­vere enough to re­quire a wheel­chair. Many peo­ple liv­ing with MS may show no out­ward signs of ill­ness at all.

What makes the con­di­tion es­pe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult, ad­vo­cates say, is the un­cer­tain­ty.

“No one per­son may de­vel­op all the symp­toms of MS, and peo­ple are af­fect­ed dif­fer­ent­ly,” ex­plained the Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go in recog­ni­tion of World MS Day.

“Of great con­cern is not know­ing how the dis­ease will progress or how de­bil­i­tat­ing it will be­come.”

Glob­al­ly, more than 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple are es­ti­mat­ed to be liv­ing with MS. While the dis­ease is more com­mon­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with cold­er north­ern re­gions, lo­cal es­ti­mates sug­gest that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go are liv­ing with the con­di­tion.

MS af­fects peo­ple of all eth­nic­i­ties and is typ­i­cal­ly di­ag­nosed be­tween the ages of 20 and 40.

Women are more sus­cep­ti­ble to the dis­ease, al­though chil­dren are not im­mune.

Among those ad­vo­cat­ing for greater un­der­stand­ing is Ster­ling Seuk­er­an, a found­ing mem­ber and di­rec­tor of the Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who has lived with the ill­ness for sev­er­al years.

For Seuk­er­an, the di­ag­no­sis al­tered al­most every as­pect of life.

He said liv­ing with MS has been deeply chal­leng­ing, af­fect­ing his work, so­cial in­ter­ac­tions and per­son­al re­la­tion­ships in dra­mat­ic ways.

Pae­di­atric MS, where symp­toms be­gin be­fore the age of 18, ac­counts for be­tween two and five per cent of cas­es world­wide.

While med­ical ad­vances con­tin­ue to im­prove treat­ment op­tions in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, ac­cess re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant hur­dle lo­cal­ly due to the high costs in­volved.

Though gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance is avail­able in some cas­es, Seuk­er­an be­lieves much more sup­port is need­ed.

He is al­so call­ing for greater at­ten­tion to ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty for peo­ple liv­ing with MS, not­ing that many pub­lic spaces re­main dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate for those with mo­bil­i­ty chal­lenges.

He be­lieves restau­rants, cin­e­mas and oth­er pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties should be equipped with step-free ac­cess, ramps, wider door­ways, low­ered pave­ments and ac­ces­si­ble toi­let fa­cil­i­ties to help peo­ple main­tain in­de­pen­dence and move freely with­out bar­ri­ers.

Sup­port ser­vices for peo­ple with MS re­main lim­it­ed, he added, un­der­scor­ing the need for broad­er pub­lic un­der­stand­ing and prac­ti­cal as­sis­tance.