This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Aetiology

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

The aetiology of motor neurone disease is unknown. 5-10% of cases show a family link. The others occur sporadically.

Syndromes resembling MND may occur:

  • following chronic poisoning with mercury, lead, manganese, or selenium
  • in association with disorders of metabolism - hypoglycaemia, uraemia, macroglobulinaemia, and following gastric surgery
  • following trauma/injury to a limb (1)
  • in association with other progressive degenerative diseases of the nervous system of unknown aetiology - Pick's disease, parkinsonism, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
  • it is endemic in island of Guam where it may occur with parkinsonism and dementia

Reference:

Create an account to add page annotations

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.