The earlier issues he will encounter will be the levels of disability he will suffer, he will lose mobility, eventually have to be in a wheelchair and then be completely unable to look after himself. The closest well known comparison is that of Stephen Hawkins who has a much slower degeneration, over many years.

 

At the moment Dave is losing the ability to work. He is a musician and one of the first things that is affected is speech so he can't sing. He is also unable to play guitar properly and will soon be unable to work. He has to avoid any heavy lifting so can't help unload and load the equipment much.

 

Other than that there is little more in the way of symptoms, but he won't be earning any money. He is married and they have 3 kids to look after (two are his wife's through a previous marriage). His wife currently works and he keeps the home during the day, working evenings at his music. Following the loss of his own work he will lose the ability to look after the kids and someone else will have to help out, either his wife stopping work or them having to get some other help in. Money is going to be the problem at this stage.

 

In addition to that they are either going to need to move house to one that will be accessible to a wheelchair and with suitable facilities at ground level (bedroom, bathroom etc.), or make some considerable adaptations of their current home to allow them to continue to live there."

 

The MNDA have been in touch and are offering a lot of support. For more information about the disease and their work please click on the logo on the left.