Multiple sclerosis and its influence on an individual and his surroundings

In this bachelor thesis I focused on the problem of the multiple sclerosis. It is an autoimmune neurological disorder manifesting itself by an emergence of inflammatory foci in the white matter of the brain and spinal cord, which destroys a container of nerve fibres so called myelin. The nerve fibre undresses and a neurotransmission slows down. Scars remain in the place of the myelin damage. An onset of the disease is usually between 20 and 40 years. At present, in the Czech Republic there are approximately 15 000 people with multiple sclerosis, 60% of them are women and 40% are men. The thesis consists of a theoretical and a practical part. In the theoretical part I focused on the current state of the problem. In individual chapters I present for example a history, a theory of the emergence or a communication with people with this disability. The theoretical part should provide basic information about multiple sclerosis. The practical part consists of a methodology I used for gathering information for the research and an evaluation of results. The information was collected by a technique of a qualitative research, a method of a semi-structured interview. Experimental samples were two. The first one was compound of people who have multiple sclerosis, the second one were close people, i.e. friends, family members. I conducted the research with clients from St. Joseph´s Home in Žireč, with clients of MS Centre in České Budějovice and with my close people and friends. Results of the research are presented in the section Results and Discussion. An aim of this thesis was to determine the influence of multiple sclerosis on an individual and his surroundings and to familiarize the people with the disease and the problems which this disorder can bring. During my research I focused on issues of housing, employment, culture life and an awareness of this problem