Charity helps opticians with rare disease (From Warrington Guardian)

Charity helps opticians with rare disease

A WARRINGTON charity is supplying opticians and GPs in the town with a video to help improve diagnosis of a rare muscle weakness disease.

Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease, which affects all voluntary muscles in the body. It has no known cure and can prove fatal.

In many cases a well-trained optician can be the first to identify MG and set the sufferer on the road to treatment via the correct channels.

Quicker diagnosis can lead to vast improvements for the patient.

Chris Sproston, branch secretary of the Warrington MG Group, said: "We decided to target opticians first, as one of the early stages of the disease affects the eyes with double vision and drooping eyelids - sometimes they can close altogether. Quite often GPs can refer patients to opticians because of these eye problems."