What are Muscle Disorders?

"Muscle may suffer from a number of diseases or disorders. Although no single method may be used to identify all diseases, recognition depends on the following diagnostic procedures: history and clinical examination, blood biochemistry, electromyography, muscle biopsy, nuclear magnetic resonance, measurement of muscle cross-sectional area, tests of muscle function, provocation tests, and studies on protein turnover.

Among the most common diseases in muscle are the muscular dystrophies, in which the newly identified muscle protein dystrophin is either absent or present at less than normal amounts in both Duchenne and Becker's muscular dystrophy." (Pearson,1993).

Improved protein digestion and metabolism is potentially a way of improving these conditions.

Other major diseases of muscles include inflammation related muscle pathology and nerve pathology. Inflammation changes the environment of the muscle cells.

It stands to reason that manual therapy techniques which influence the nutrients and blood flow in the environment of the muscle could help signs and symptoms.

"Some other interesting related diseases and disorders of muscle include myasthenia gravis, muscular dysgenesis, and myclonus.

Disorders of energy metabolism include those caused by abnormal glycolysis (Von Gierke's, Pompe's, Cori-Forbes, Andersen's, McArdle's, Hers', and Tauri's diseases) and by the acquired diseases of glycolysis (disorders of mitochondrial oxidation).

Still other diseases associated with abnormal energy metabolism include lipid-related disorders (carnitine and carnitine palmitoyl-transferase deficiencies) and myotonic syndromes (myotonia congenita, paramyotonia congenita, hypokalemic and hyperkalemic periodic paralysis, and malignant hyperexia)

Diseases of the connective tissues include those of nutritional origin (scurvy, lathyrism, starvation, and protein deficiency), the genetic diseases (dermatosparaxis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, osteogenesis imperfecta, Marfan syndrome, homocystinuria, alcaptonuria, epidermolysis bullosa, rheumatoid arthritis and the several types of systemic lupus erythematosus) and the acquired diseases of connective tissues (abnormal calcification, systemic sclerosis, interstitial lung disease, hepatic fibrosis, and carcinomas of the connective tissues)."¹ (Pearson,1993).