Severe MS left Annette Funicello unable to walk, speak

Annette Funicello's husband describes how at age 70, the former entertainer had become unable to walk or speak, due to the effects of multiple sclerosis. CTV reports.

By Linda Carroll

After battling multiple sclerosis for decades, Annette Funicello died today from complications of the disease.

That doesnt mean that MS actually killed her, says Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl, a professor in the department of neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the UCLA MS program.

MS does not directly shorten the lifespan, Voskuhl explains. It doesnt kill people directly. If youve had a very severe form for a very, very long time you can have the same complications that anyone has who is immobilized. You can get pneumonia. You can get bed sores. You can have difficulty eating.

These days the prognosis for the vast majority of MS patients is better than it was when Funicello was diagnosed because there are treatments that can slow the progression of the disease. There was a revolution in MS drugs in the late 90s, Voskuhl says. Those drugs dont stop the disease, but they slow it down.

If you were diagnosed years ago, before there were good treatments, many brain cells could be lost. Early treatment is very important, Voskuhl says.

No one understands exactly why MS strikes some people and not others. But in some, the immune system goes out of whack and begins to attack the outer covering of axons, which are the structures that function like phone lines to carry information from cell to cell in the brain.

In people with MS, immune cells chew away at the axons outer covering, or myelin, and that makes signals ragged. The situation is similar to a phone line with a damaged rubber coating: Voices sound ragged if the damage is minor, an unintelligible if its worse.

Theres a wide variation in the type of symptoms people experience with MS. Some just feel odd sensations, like tingling, or lose feeling in body parts from time to time.

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Severe MS left Annette Funicello unable to walk, speak