Saudi Gazette report DAMMAM — King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Dammam (KFSHD) will organize a multiple sclerosis awareness day on Thursday. The annual event, entitled “Better Together,” will be held at Khobar Carlton Moabed Hotel from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Organized by the hospital's Neurosciences Center in collaboration with the Saudi Consultative Group for Multiple Sclerosis and coinciding with World Multiple Sclerosis Day, the program targets patients with multiple sclerosis and their families in the region to educate them about the concept and nature of the disease, how to live with it and deal with physical and psychological changes that affect patients. Multiple sclerosis is a human central nervous system disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. It damages myelin membrane that surrounds and protects nerve cells. This leads to a slowdown in electrical signals sent between the brain and body parts, thus causing an onset of symptoms represented in visual disturbances, muscle weakness, imbalance as well as problems in feelings, thinking and memory. It is a global disease with unspecified reasons, although there are some assumptions raised about its causes. It is a disease that affects both men and women aged between 20 and 50 years. “Our society suffers a lack of awareness about multiple sclerosis which is important to enable patients to live with the disease,” said Dr. Reem Al-Bunayan, a consultant neurologist and director of KFSHD's Neurosciences Center. Al-Bunayan, who is also the deputy chairperson of Saudi Multiple Sclerosis Society, added that there are no specific statistics about the number of afflicted people in the Kingdom. However, the Saudi Consultative Group is in the process of compiling statistics about incidence and prevalence of the disease in the Kingdom. The latest statistics of the European Society for Neuroscience Diseases indicated an increase in multiple sclerosis cases in Kuwait, where the incidence rate has reached 14.7 for every100,000 people. Dr. Al-Bunayan said the community must play an active role in supporting patients by providing them with social and career opportunities that suit their functional capacity, as they are fully able to work and produce. She emphasized the importance of launching research and development programs, and intensifying efforts to gather statistics about the disease in the Kingdom.
