Advances in syndrome and treatment of motor neuron disease with traditional Chinese medicine / 中国基层医药

ABSTRACT

Motor neuron disease(MND) is a group of progressive motor neuron diseases and the pathogenesis is not well defined.The pathologic hallmark of MND is death of lower motor neurons (consisting of anterior horn cells in the spinal cord and their brainstem homologues innervating bulbar muscles ) and upper, or corticospinal,motor neurons.The clinical manifestations of MND are mucsle weakness ,muscle atrophy,fasciculations,bulbar paralysis and positive pyramidal signs.Traditional Chinese medicine ( TCM) named MND as flaccidity syndrome.Recently,some scholars have proposed that "MND" can be regarded as an independent research object of TCM.At present,symptomatic supportive treatment is the main treatment for MMD in western medicine ,which can only slow the progress of the disease.TCM treatment for MND has advantages of more effective than western medicine ,fewer adverse reactions and lower price.So TCM can be used as an effective method for combined treatment of MND.This article reviews the research progress of syndrome and treatment of MND with TCM.