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December 15, 2004
'West Wing' showing 'how MS really is'
By Peggy O'Farrell
Cincinnati Enquirer
For a while, Pat Gove thought Josiah Bartlet was getting off easy.
That changed when Bartlet - the fictional president on the NBC drama "The West Wing" - started having symptoms she recognized.
Gove and Bartlet have something in common: Both have multiple sclerosis (MS).
The disease - a chronic degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system - only had caused political fallout for Bartlet until a few weeks ago. Now the character, played by Martin Sheen, is shown suffering the disease's many physical effects, including numbness, paralysis and loss of vision.
"Now it's getting more into how MS really is," the 54-year-old Mason woman says.
Multiple sclerosis patients and their doctors say the series is offering a realistic portrayal of the disease's unpredictable progression.
In the Dec. 1 episode, Bartlet reports losing vision in one eye. Last Wednesday, the character slowly lost feeling in his limbs, and was paralyzed from the neck down for some hours.
A trailer for tonight's episode (9 p.m., Channels 5, 2) shows Bartlet still partially paralyzed as he begins a crucial summit with China.
Dr. Michael Schmerler, a neurologist with Riverhills Healthcare, says the symptoms shown so far track with textbook examples of how MS affects patients.
"We see these symptoms, unfortunately, all too often," Schmerler says.
Nancy Corbett, 41, a Newport artist, has suffered the same vision problems and paralysis as Bartlet.
The series "is pretty accurate for most MS patients," Corbett says.
"The West Wing" is raising awareness about multiple sclerosis at a time when doctors and patients are at their most hopeful about being able to control - but not yet cure - the devastating disease, says Linda Stetson, president of the Ohio Valley Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Since 1994, Stetson says, six treatments have become available to slow the progress of the disease, she points out.
The newest drug, Tysabri, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in November. Before 1994, there was no treatment.
"Dollars for research really are making a difference," she says.
Dr. Susan Pierson, clinical director of the Waddell Comprehensive Center for Multiple Sclerosis Care at the Drake Center and the University of Cincinnati and the Neuroscience Institute, likes that "The West Wing" shows an MS patient leading a normal, productive life.
The series raises the question of whether Bartlet will be able to handle the demands of the presidency while battling the disease's symptoms - which can include memory loss and cognitive decline.
Gove doubts an MS patient could do it in real life.
"Stress is the worst offender for MS, and stress and being president of the United States go hand in hand," she says.
Schmerler and Corbett disagree. Schmerler points out that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a polio survivor, fought a war and the Great Depression from a wheelchair.
Both say they think an MS patient could run the country if only his or her physical abilities were affected.
"As long as he's mentally sharp and he has periodic testing of his thinking and memory function, he could do it," Schmerler says.
Posted by Jo at December 15, 2004 08:29 AM