Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a disorder affecting the motor neurons—nerve cells that control voluntary muscle movement. These cells are located in the spinal cord. Because the muscles cannot respond to signals from the nerves, they atrophy — weaken and shrink — from inactivity.

Healthline through Dr. William Morrison Director, Musculoskeletal/General Diagnostic Muscle at Jefferson University Hospital, states atrophy is when muscles waste away. The main reason for muscle wasting is a lack of physical activity. This can happen when a disease or injury makes it difficult or impossible for you to move an arm or leg. A symptom of atrophied muscles is an arm that appears smaller, but not shorter, than the other arm.

You should schedule an appointment with your doctor if you think you are experiencing muscle atrophy. Your doctor will determine what treatment you need. In some cases, muscle wasting can be reversed with a proper diet, exercise, or physical therapy.

Symptoms of muscle atrophy

You may have muscle atrophy if:

• One of your arms or legs is noticeably smaller than the other.
• You are experiencing marked weakness in one limb.
• You have been physically inactive for a very long time.

Contact your doctor to have a complete medical examination if you believe you may have muscle atrophy or if you are unable to move normally. You may have an undiagnosed condition that requires treatment. Your doctor will be able to provide you with diet and exercise options.

S/S of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA):

Symptoms of SMA may include:

• muscle weakness and decreased muscle tone
• limited mobility
• breathing problems-Remember we say  the weakness tends to be more severe in the muscles that are close to the center of the body (proximal) compared to muscles away from the body’s center (distal).   So your respiratory muscles are close to the center.
• problems eating and swallowing
• delayed gross motor skills
• spontaneous tongue movements
• scoliosis (curvature of the spine)

At birth, infants may appear normal, but can develop some of these signs as they age ^{6 mths or 18mths and 3,4,6 (it all depends on what stage level they are in since the stages happen at different ages, discussed after the s/s}:

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)-WHEN S/S start?

All signs snd symptoms depends on the type of Spinal Muscular Atrophy you are diagnosed with.  Lets look:

• Type 1  This is the most common and severe form of SMA. It’s sometimes called Werdnig-Hoffmann disease or infantile-onset SMA. Children with type 1 have limited movement, can’t sit without support, and have trouble breathing, feeding, and swallowing. Symptoms begin at birth or within the first six months of life. Many children with type 1 do not live past age 2.
• Type 2  This is an intermediate form of SMA. Children with this type may sit without support at some point but cannot walk on their own. Symptoms typically start between 6 and 18 months of age. Depending on the severity of symptoms, children with type 2 may have a normal life span.
• Type 3 is a milder form of SMA. It’s also known as Kugelberg-Welander disease and resembles muscular dystrophy. While children with type 3 usually are able to walk, most have some difficulty walking. Some may eventually need to use a wheelchair. Symptoms usually appear around 18 months of age or in early childhood. Children with this type of SMA generally have an almost normal life expectancy.
• Type 4 is very rare. It usually symptoms start in young adulthood, & causes mild motor impairment.

“Your muscular heart, the main organ in your cardiovascular system, is vital for life. Its parts work together to move blood through your body in a coordinated way. It constantly sends oxygen to your cells and takes away waste. Many conditions can affect this organ and keep it from working well. Your heart contains four muscular sections (4 chambers) that briefly hold blood before moving it. Electrical impulses make your heart beat, moving blood through these chambers. Your brain and nervous system direct your heart’s function. Your heart controls the speed of your heart rate and B/P.  The heart is the main organ of your circulatory system, your heart keeps you alive. It pumps blood throughout your body, bringing oxygen to your cells and tissues. Since your heart plays such a vital role, it’s important to take care of it. Conditions that affect your heart are very common, but you have the power to make changes for a stronger heart especially before heart problems occur.  The key is prevention.”

Cleveland Clinic (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/21704-heart)

How the heart is structured and functions:

The human heart is a four-chambered muscular organ that are called atriums at the top LA and RA and the bottom ones called ventricles- right ventricle=RV and left ventricle=LV.  The heart is shaped and sized roughly like a man’s closed fist with two-thirds of the mass to the left of midline which is due to the left ventricle works the hardest pumping blood throughout the body so it makes that chamber the most muscular area.  The right side of the heart pumps blood blood returning to the heart that went throughout the body using up most of the oxygen in it that has mainly carbon dioxide in the blood going the the right side chambers.  First the right atrium and than the right ventricle to just the lungs for more oxygen to the lungs that carries mainly oxygenated blood to the left side of the heart first to the left atrium to the left ventricle that pumps that oxygenated blood through out the body to deliver to all tissues oxygen.

Think of the heart as the engine of the body.  Without a engine the car would not work and without a heart the body would die.  Without the lungs the heart and other tissues would not function and die.  A car without a transmission would not engine would not function and the car would die.

Without oxygen our tissues would go through oxygen starvation and the body would die.  A car without oil would die due to oil starvation and you need the car engine to start the car for the transmission to work with oil to be pumped.

Valves of the Heart:

Pumps need a set of valves to keep the fluid flowing in one direction and the heart is no exception. The heart has two types of valves that keep the blood flowing in the correct direction. The valves between the atria and ventricles are called atrioventricular valves (also called cuspid valves), while those at the bases of the large vessels leaving the ventricles are called semilunar valves.

The right atrioventricular valve is the tricuspid valve. The left atrioventricular valve is the bicuspid, or mitral, valve. The valve between the right ventricle and pulmonary trunk is the pulmonary semilunar valve. The valve between the left ventricle and the aorta is the aortic semilunar valve.

When the ventricles contract, atrioventricular valves close to prevent blood from flowing back into the atria. When the ventricles relax, semilunar valves close to prevent blood from flowing back into the ventricles.

What can happen to the heart if it does not function properly:

Congestive heart failure, or heart failure, is a long-term condition in which your heart can’t pump blood well enough to meet your body’s needs. Your heart is still working. But because it can’t handle the amount of blood it should, blood builds up in other parts of your body. Most of the time, it collects in your lungs, legs and feet.

Think of it like a shipping department that can’t keep up with getting all the shipments where they need to go. The shipping department is always running behind and things pile up. When things pile up, they cause issues OR think of it like plumbing if there is a problem with the water getting through the pipe lines (like our blood flow getting through the veins and arteries) you will need a plumber to fix the blockage, valve problem or broken pipe (just like the blood getting through the body due to a blockage in the vein or artery or bad heart valve or failure elsewhere in that system)

Heart Failure or Congested Heart Failure (CHF) there are types Right sided CHF or heart failure or Left sided CHF or heart failure.   Sometimes the MD may even see High output failure but rare.  More than 6 million people in the United States have congestive heart failure. It’s the leading cause of hospitalization in people older than 65.

Some of the complications from congestive heart failure include:

• Irregular heartbeat.
• Sudden cardiac arrest.
• Heart valve problems.
• A collection of fluid in your lungs.
• Pulmonary hypertension.
• Kidney damage.
• Liver damage.
• Malnutrition.

MOST IMPORTANTLY REMEMBER THIS:

There’s no cure for heart failure. As congestive heart failure gets worse, your heart muscle pumps less blood to your organs, and you move toward the next stage of heart failure(there are A,B,C,D stages). Since you can’t move backward through the heart failure stages, the goal of treatment is to keep you from moving forward through the stages at its slowest pace or to slow down the progression of your heart failure with giving you the chance to live as long as possible at your optimal level.

Regarding Heart Valves there is this to know:

Heart valve disease can affect anyone. But people over 65 are at higher risk. In fact, 2.5 million people over the age of 75 have aortic stenosis, one of the most common types of heart valve disease. While its symptoms can be subtle they shouldn’t be brushed off as “getting older.” Left untreated, it can progress to severe aortic stenosis, also known as heart valve failure.

People over 65 y/o are at highest risk for this and that is based on the my theory like a car the older you are the higher the risk your car is going to be worn down just like the heart (the engine to the body) the older it is the higher the risk that individual will have body part problems like the heart.

Symptoms are your body’s way of sending warning signs that you may be in danger. Unfortunately, diet and exercise can’t fix a failing heart valve. Take control by asking for a referral to a Heart Valve Team or Cardiologist so you can be evaluated.

Without treatment, 1 in 10 people with heart valve failure may die within 5 weeksof symptoms starting if they don’t get a recommended valve replacement!

Remember this important note the better you care for the car the longer it lasts and the better you take care of yourself the longer it lasts.

“During hip replacement, a surgeon removes the damaged sections of the hip joint and replaces them with parts usually constructed of metal, ceramic and very hard plastic. This artificial joint (prosthesis) helps reduce pain and improve function.

Also called total hip arthroplasty, hip replacement surgery might be an option if hip pain interferes with daily activities and nonsurgical treatments haven’t helped or are no longer effective. Arthritis damage is the most common reason to need.

Hip replacement may be an option if hip pain:

• Persists, despite pain medication
• Worsens with walking, even with a cane or walker
• Interferes with sleep
• Affects the ability to walk up or down stairs
• Makes it difficult to rise from a seated position”

MAYO CLINIC (https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hip-replacement/about/pac-20385042)

“Indeed, music is a potent tool for the future of precision medicine. As the scientific community continues to elucidate the emotional landscape of music, as well as how it differs from listener to listener, new methods for alleviating disease severity and improving overall well-being await both patients and otherwise healthy members of the general public.

The effect of music on our brains has clinical implications as well. Growing evidence suggests, for example, that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major can reduce the frequency of seizures in some people with epilepsy.

Identifying the exact type of music able to provoke a particular cognitive, motor, or emotional response, there could be progress toward healing, improving, or compensating for disrupted brain function in various diseases. An increased understanding of brain mechanisms can facilitate this.

David Silbersweig, the Stanley Cobb Professor of Psychiatry at HMS and chair emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is interested in uncovering answers to these questions. A leader in functional neuroimaging research in psychiatry, he investigates how brain regions and networks function when we perceive, think, feel, and act.

“We seem to be very much tuned for music”

“It’s at the systems level with brain imaging that you can directly correlate mental states and brain states — and measure them.” Silbersweig says. “Neuroimaging provides a noninvasive way of correlating brain structural and functional abnormalities with specific aspects of music processing.”

STRESS

Another factor in music’s ability to reduce pain likely stems from its competition for our attention. “If you’re thinking about something else, then you’re not thinking about your pain, and you feel less pain,” says psychologist David Bradshaw, who studies pain relief at the University of Utah’s Pain Research Center.  Bradshaw’s research shows that the more actively engaged a person is in music, the less pain they feel. For instance, a group of non-musicians asked to listen for errors in a musical passage reported less pain when receiving small electric shocks than those who passively listened to the music. 

Other work out of Bradshaw’s lab suggests that certain personality factors, such as a propensity toward anxiety or the ability to become easily absorbed in activities, may lead individuals to experience greater relief from engaged music listening. These findings suggest that physicians should consider patients’ personalities when recommending pain treatment programs. 

Listening to a song can have a real effect on various parts of the brain, with studies showing that areas responsible for aspects, such as memory and vision, can ‘light up’ in response to music.

“There’s a very wide range of reactions in the body and mind to music, and brain imaging studies have shown that various parts of the brain may be activated by a piece of music.”,  says Dr Victoria Williamson, lecturer in psychology at Goldsmith’s College, London.

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‘For example, a recent study in Canada showed that there’s a real causal relationship between music and the reward system, a core part of the brain that reacts to stimuli, which are good for us – food, light, sex for example – and reinforces these behaviors meaning that we do them more.’

Researchers at McGill University in Montreal showed that listening to pleasurable music of any description induced ‘musical chills’, which triggered the release of the feel-good chemical dopamine.

“We all know from our own individual experiences that listening to music can affect mood”, says Bridget O’Connell, head of information at the mental health charity Mind.

Music may even be able to help you concentrate.

A new ‘digital tonic’ called Ubrain, which can be downloaded onto smartphones, claims to be able to help people focus, energise, wake up as well as relax.

The process uses two different beats in each ear to create a third ‘perceived’ beat (a binaural beat), which can stimulate certain activity in the brain.

“By helping the brain cortex to generate specific brain waves, we can induce different states of alertness, depending on what we aim to do”, explains Paris-based clinical psychologist Brigitte Forgeot.

If we’re feeling anxious or stressed, we can encourage our cerebral cortex to produce slow alpha-frequency brain waves, while on the other end of the scale, if we help our cortex to produce faster beta waves, we will be better equipped to concentrate and focus our attention on a fairly lengthy task.

FOCUS

Music may even be able to help you concentrate.

A new ‘digital tonic’ called Ubrain, which can be downloaded onto smartphones, claims to be able to help people focus, energise, wake up as well as relax.

The process uses two different beats in each ear to create a third ‘perceived’ beat (a binaural beat), which can stimulate certain activity in the brain.

“By helping the brain cortex to generate specific brain waves, we can induce different states of alertness, depending on what we aim to do”, explains Paris-based clinical psychologist Brigitte Forgeot.

If we’re feeling anxious or stressed, we can encourage our cerebral cortex to produce slow alpha-frequency brain waves, while on the other end of the scale, if we help our cortex to produce faster beta waves, we will be better equipped to concentrate and focus our attention on a fairly lengthy task.

PREVENTION OF DISEASE by increasing the immunity through music—AMAZING!

Can listening to music actually help prevent disease? Some researchers think so.

Wilkes University researchers looked at how music affects levels of IgA — an important antibody for our immune system’s first line of defense against disease. Undergraduate students had their salivary IgA levels measured before and after 30 minutes of exposure to one of four conditions — listening to a tone click, a radio broadcast, a tape of soothing music or silence. Those students exposed to the soothing music had significantly greater increases in IgA than any of the other conditions, suggesting that exposure to music (and not other sounds) might improve innate immunity.

Another study from Massachusetts General Hospital found that listening to Mozart’s piano sonatas helped relax critically ill patients by lowering stress hormone levels, but the music also decreased blood levels of interleukin-6 — a protein that has been implicated in higher mortality rates, diabetes and heart problems.

According to a 2013 meta-analysis, authors Mona Lisa Chanda and Daniel Levitin concluded that music has the potential to augment immune response systems, but that the findings to date are preliminary. Still, as Levitin notes in one article on the study, “I think the promise of music as medicine is that it’s natural and it’s cheap and it doesn’t have the unwanted side effects that many pharmaceutical products do.”

FOR THE DISEASED PATIENTS

Music can actually have a significant positive impact on patients with long-term illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer and respiratory conditions (Home, in nursing homes, hospitals, the office, etc…)

Numerous trials have shown that music can help lower heart rate, blood pressure and help relieve pain, anxiety and improve patient quality of life.

“Music can be incredibly useful for somebody who is in a situation where they have lost a lot of control from their external environment – say they are in hospital for a long period of time with a serious illness and less able to move around,” says Dr Williamson.

‘It can give them a sense of control back, as well as creating a calm personal atmosphere and blocking out some of the disturbances around the patient.

According to sports researchers Peter Terry and Costas Karageorghis, “Music has the capacity to capture attention, lift spirits, generate emotion, change or regulate mood, evoke memories, increase work output, reduce inhibitions and encourage rhythmic movement — all of which have potential applications in sport and exercise.”

MUSIC IS AMAZING ON OUR HUMAN BODY REGARDING OUR HEALTH!! WHAT A GREAT MEDICINE!!

“If you want to firm up your body, head to the gym. If you want to exercise your brain, listen to music.

Pain relief with a pain relieving nature-MUSIC.

The improvement of physical wellbeing through music isn’t only about perceived pain relief. Studies show that playing music for patients before, during, and after medical procedures can help lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and stress, ease muscle tension, and more.  At the Chronic Pain Care Center at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, music therapy is part of the array of techniques that patients learn to help control their pain, according to osteopathic physician Steven Stanos, medical director of the center. As Stanos sees it, there is no reason not to take time to listen to music.  “What we’ve learned from our pain patients is that any intervention that can be distracting, relaxing, and enjoyable — whether it’s music or another therapy — can decrease the experience of pain,” Stanos says. 

Listening to a song can have a real effect on various parts of the brain, with studies showing that areas responsible for aspects, such as memory and vision, can ‘light up’ in response to music.

‘There’s a very wide range of reactions in the body and mind to music, and brain imaging studies have shown that various parts of the brain may be activated by a piece of music,’ says Dr Victoria Williamson, lecturer in psychology at Goldsmith’s College, London.

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‘For example, a recent study in Canada showed that there’s a real causal relationship between music and the reward system, a core part of the brain that reacts to stimuli, which are good for us – food, light, sex for example – and reinforces these behaviors meaning that we do them more.’

Researchers at McGill University in Montreal showed that listening to pleasurable music of any description induced ‘musical chills’, which triggered the release of the feel-good chemical dopamine.

Music so impacting to our brain that music is even considered having a pain-relieving nature, scientists are exploring how the brain processes music during pain. Look at when we go to the doctor or better the dentist. More are less out to go to the dentist as opposed to the MD since a doctor’s visit doesn’t include the day of the visit or soon later a drill going in out mouth to take care of a cavity or worse Root Canal Surgery, you get the picture. Remember when you have or if you still do regularly go to the dentist there is always soft music in the background. This is because it calms the body through how the brain reacts to soft music as opposed to hard rough music.

When the body encounters something painful — you step on a tack or having a drill applied to a cavity with no novacaine if allergic or the patient just refuses the medication, for instance — electrochemical signals travel from the site of the injury to the spinal cord and on to the brain. There, several brain regions work together to process pain signals — ultimately resulting in the conscious experience of, “Ow, that hurts!” In contrast, brain scans reveal that listening to pleasing music increases activity in parts of the brain’s reward center. 

“Pleasant music triggers the release of the brain chemical dopamine,” explains Robert Zatorre, of McGill University, who studies emotion and music. This change “is strongly associated with other rewarding and motivating stimuli, such as food, sex, and certain addictive drugs,” Zatorre adds. Scientists believe that music’s ability to make you feel good may be one way it helps to alleviate pain.

PLEASING TUNES = RELIEVING PAIN

Studies also suggest that how good a song makes you feel affects your perception of pain. Although musical taste is subjective, there are common features of music that evoke fairly universal responses. For instance, most people find musical consonance (harmonies or chords) to be pleasant and dissonance (clashing notes) to be unpleasant.

When scientists asked study volunteers to evaluate pain while they listened to different types of music, researchers found that people who listened to excerpts of music judged by most to be pleasant (such as the Romantic music piece “The Blue Danube Waltz“) reported less pain than those who listened to unpleasant music (such as Steve Reich’s modern classical piece “Pendulum Music“). The more pleasing the listeners found the music to be, the less pain they felt. 

Other studies suggest that music can interfere with pain signals even before they reach the brain — at the level of the spinal cord. In these studies, scientists examine how different types of music change the withdrawal reflex: an involuntary organized entirely in the spinal cord. 

In one study, scientists measured how forcefully volunteers withdrew their feet after being mildly electrically zapped on an ankle as they listened to music. Compared with pleasant music, unpleasant music resulted in stronger leg reflexes and greater reports of pain. 

Psychologist Mathieu Roy, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who conducted the study, says these results suggest that music can prevent the transmission of pain signals from the spinal cord to the brain.

“Since 2006, two UCF professors — neuroscientist Kiminobu Sugaya and world-renowned violinist Ayako Yonetani — have been teaching one of the most popular courses in The Burnett Honors College. “Music and the Brain” explores how music impacts brain function and human behavior, including by reducing stress, pain and symptoms of depression as well as improving cognitive and motor skills, spatial-temporal learning and neurogenesis, which is the brain’s ability to produce neurons. Sugaya and Yonetani teach how people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s also respond positively to music.