multiple sclerosis and related conditions (brainstem demyelination)

is anyone aware of there being any case reports involving people with either of these conditions? (particularly the latter, but either since they are related)

Thanks

Claire
(in fact at BHP Law)

I think it’s just the same as any other condition - factually, how does it affect the person?
I have a friend who has recently been diagnosed with MS, though she has had symptoms in one leg and nowhere else for over a year. She is a music teacher and so far there is no indication her condition makes her unable to work. I also knew someone through the CAB in the early 1980s - not a client - who had MS but in the extreme remitting-relapsing form. It eventually killed him, but not for about 15 years, and he had periods when he was very ill and incapable indeed for six to 12 months, and then for two or three years he could work as normal. Luckily he had an understanding employer - unusual in those days - but his job was an intellectually demanding one with very long hours, in financial services.
The big problem with MS for many people is its vagabond tendency - galloping round the body, now affecting the legs, now the arms, now sight, now hearing or speech. This makes fitting it into the descriptor-based style of assessment for ESA now and PIP in due course very hard. And of course like almost all medical conditions it affects everyone who has it in an individual way, in terms of what is affected, for how long, remissions and relapses, and everything. Which is precisely why the incapacity and disability benefits are predicated not upon diagnosis but on impairment.

Is this a case where Reg 29 2 (a) applies. Is MS a disease, or a condition?....

29.—(1) A claimant who does not have limited capability for work as determined in accordance with the limited capability for work assessment is to be treated as having limited capability for work if paragraph (2) applies to the claimant.

(2) This paragraph applies if—

(a)the claimant is suffering from a life threatening disease in relation to which— .
(i)there is medical evidence that the disease is uncontrollable, or uncontrolled, by a recognised therapeutic procedure; and .
(ii)in the case of a disease that is uncontrolled, there is a reasonable cause for it not to be controlled by a recognised therapeutic procedure; or

The DWP official guidance might be worth having a look at?

Symptoms due to the nerves affected by demyelination