SMA Awareness Month

August is SMA Awareness Month:

. SMA KILLS more infants and young children than any other inherited disease.

. There is NO treatment. There is NO cure.

. SMA is degenerative, eventually hindering the ability to walk, stand, sit, eat, breathe and even swallow. The mind is no different from that of a healthy baby, but the body eventually fails.

. Typical babies with SMA Type 1 have a life expectancy of between one and two years and require around-the-clock medical assistance and monitoring.

. 1 in every 40 people or nearly 10 million Americans UNKNOWINGLY carry the gene responsible for SMA — few have any known family history of SMA.

. SMA is a pan-ethnic disease and does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, or gender.

. While SMA is currently incurable, untreatable, and drastically underfunded –> There is HOPE.

. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) selected SMA as the disease CLOSEST TO TREATMENT of more than 600 neurological disorders.