Multiple Sclerosis

Subject: Patricia Ricci, 67 Assets: Home valued at $750,000; $80,000 in stocks and mutual funds Liabilities: $124,000 mortgage; $6,000 credit card debt Financial goals: Reallocate investments and prepare for long-term-care needs Recommendations: Sell stock to pay off credit card debt. Reallocate existing investments into a more conservative mix of stocks and bonds, putting two-thirds into highly rated bonds and the remainder into an indexed mutual fund holding large-company stocks.

Warm weather is known to aggravate multiple sclerosis, increasing the number of lesions that develop in the brain and spinal cord and leading to a flare-up of symptoms such as numbness and fatigue. But a new study shows that warm weather can also impair cognitive function. The study, which will be presented in April at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology , examined 40 people with the disease and 40 healthy people. The researchers, from the Kessler Foundation in West Orange, N.J., found that people with multiple sclerosis scored 70% better on thinking tests during cooler days as compared with warmer days.

Any kid can tell you that Wii games are fun, but people with multiple sclerosis also may find them therapeutic. Wii's motion-sensitive electronic games show some promise in rehabilitating adults with MS, according to British physiotherapist Colin Green. "I have used the Wii system with various clients with MS with some success, in particular in the three areas of balance, aerobic fitness and co-ordination," he writes. Check out the full story at "Does Wii-hab work?" But the medical world has its own devices and "games" that allow MS patients to exercise their arms and legs in hopes that the brain will relearn those actions through repetitive motions.

A failed anti-rejection drug got a new purpose and a new lease on commercial life Wednesday as the Food and Drug Administration approved the medication fingolimod -- to be marketed as Gilenya -- to slow the progression of disability in multiple sclerosis patients. Gilenya becomes the first MS medication that can be taken daily in pill form, and it joins a small clutch of injectable medications that sometimes go unused because they can be difficult to administer and have bothersome or painful side effects, including flulike symptoms and pain at the site of injection.

The asthma drug albuterol can ease the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and delay relapses when added to conventional treatments, but the effects apparently wear off after a year, researchers reported Monday. Multiple sclerosis is a disease in which the body's own immune system attacks the protective layer of myelin around nerve fibers, producing short circuits. Symptoms include visual disturbances, difficulty walking, fatigue, and loss of coordination, sensation, and bowel and bladder control.

Rowling targets MS Author J.K. Rowling has given $15.4 million to set up a clinic to treat and research multiple sclerosis, the disease that killed her mother in 1990. The creator of Harry Potter said Tuesday that the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic will be based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and that she hopes it will become "a world center for excellence in the field of regenerative neurology. " The university said Rowling's gift is the largest single donation it has received.

Multiple sclerosis, a disease in which a person’s own immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord, is a lifelong problem -- but its effects can be highly seasonal, researchers say. Between March and August, patients suffering from multiple sclerosis were two to three times more likely to develop brain lesions than during the rest of the year, according to the paper published in the Aug. 31 issue of the journal Neurology. The scientists looked for new T2 lesions in 939 MRI exams of 44 patients, taken between 1991 and 1993.

A novel theory about the cause of multiple sclerosis — one that quickly led to millions of dollars in research pledges and an increasingly popular, though unproved, treatment — took a hit Monday from two studies calling the premise into question. The theory, proposed last year, had gained traction in a field desperate for research advances. It suggests that multiple sclerosis can be traced to obstruction in the veins carrying blood from the brain back to the heart — leading to nervous system damage and causing the hallmark symptoms of muscle weakness, decreased coordination and vision problems.

For more than a decade, Cheryl Clark has lived with the chronic pain that accompanies fibromyalgia. After years of suffering with severe flu-like aches and pains, she finally found some relief — but it didn't come from a pill or a shot. It came from exercise. Several times a week, Clark heads to the warm-water pool and the gym at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in Pomona. Her pain, she says, has gone from a six or seven on a 10-point scale scale down to a one or two. "It would kill me to walk from the car to the doctor's office.

Jimmie Heuga, who won a bronze medal skiing at the 1964 Winter Olympics and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis six years later, has died. He was 66. Heuga died Monday at Boulder Community Hospital in Colorado, said University of Colorado ski coach and longtime friend Richard Rokos. He said Heuga had recently been dealing with respiratory problems. At the '64 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, Heuga finished third in the slalom, just behind fellow American Billy Kidd. They were the first U.S. men to win medals in skiing.