Texas Children’s Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinic is part of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Care Center Network, which is the organization’s network of top-tier clinical care and medical research institutions. Our affiliation with the MDA means we have earned national recognition for the all-encompassing care we provide for all types of neuromuscular disorders.
Comprehensive care for neuromuscular disease
Our Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinic provides comprehensive care for neuromuscular disorders (NMD), which are diseases of the nerves and muscles disorders that cause progressive muscle weakness and other symptoms that can become severe. These include muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and many others.
The specialists in our clinic expertly manage these complex disorders through diagnostic testing to determine the specifics of each patient’s condition, advanced treatments and thorough follow-up care for infants, children, teens and young adults.
What is neuromuscular disease?
Many neuromuscular diseases result from specific genetic mutations (changes in genes) that affect proteins that strengthen and protect nerves and muscles. Different genetic mutations cause each type of NMD, and they affect nerves and/or muscle groups in different areas of the body. Other NMDs, such as myasthenia gravis, are autoimmune.
Some of these neuromuscular disorders occur in infants, children and teens, whereas others may not appear until middle age or later. NMDs vary in different ways such as which nerves and/or muscle groups they affect, how serious the symptoms are, how quickly they get worse, whether they run in families and other factors.
Our team specializes in all forms of NMD. Some types we often treat include:
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease: Disorder that affects peripheral nerves, which control movement in the arms and legs.
Congenital myopathies: Disorders that a child is born with that affect the muscles causing varying degrees of weakness throughout the body
Duchenne Becker muscular dystrophy and Limb-Girdle muscular dystrophy: Disorder of the muscle that causes progressive breakdown of muscle tissue and weakness in the arms and legs. It can also affect the heart muscle and breathing muscles.
Myasthenia gravis: Autoimmune disorder that blocks the normal signal from the nerve to the muscle preventing movement and causing weakness.
Spinal muscular atrophy: Disorder that affects specialized nerve cells (motor neurons) in the spinal cord that control skeletal muscles (muscles used for voluntary movement).
Our nationally recognized team
Our interdisciplinary, nationally recognized team includes pediatric neurologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists, physiatrists, physical therapists, orthopedic surgeons, social workers, a neuropsychologist, a psychologist and trained volunteers from the Blue Bird Circle.
