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Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:31 Classification of Poliomyelitis
2:15 Causes of Poliomyelitis
3:11 Symptoms of Poliomyelitis
4:20 Diagnosis of Poliomyelitis
4:48 Treatment of Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a virus that causes a serious disease. It is spread from person to person.[1]
Most of the time, polio has no symptoms unless the polio virus gets into the blood.[2] It is uncommon for the virus to enter the brain or spinal cord. If this does happen, it can cause muscles to become paralyzed. Some people get better from the paralysis. Others will be disabled. Depending on which muscles have been affected, these people may need a mobility aid or a wheelchair; they may have difficulty using their hands; or they may even have trouble breathing.
About 15 out of every 10,000 adults who get polio die. (This means an adult has a 0.015% chance of dying from polio.)
Vaccination with polio vaccines could stop the disease all over the world. Organizations like the World Health Organization have been trying to vaccinate as many people as possible against polio.[3] Vaccinations have eliminated polio from most countries in the world.[4][5]
Worldwide, polio has become much less common in the past few decades. In 1988, there were about 350,000 cases of polio in the world. By 2007, the number of cases of polio in the world had decreased by over 99.9%, to just 1,652 cases.[6][7][8]
The 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had polio. So far, he is the only President of the United States to have had this disease. he term "poliomyelitis" is used to identify the disease caused by any of the three serotypes of poliovirus. Two basic patterns of polio infection are described: a minor illness which does not involve the central nervous system (CNS), sometimes called abortive poliomyelitis, and a major illness involving the CNS, which may be paralytic or nonparalytic.[13] In most people with a normal immune system, a poliovirus infection is asymptomatic. Rarely, the infection produces minor symptoms; these may include upper respiratory tract infection (sore throat and fever), gastrointestinal disturbances (nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, constipation or, rarely, diarrhea), and influenza-like illness.[1]
The virus enters the central nervous system in about 1 percent of infections. Most patients with CNS involvement develop nonparalytic aseptic meningitis, with symptoms of headache, neck, back, abdominal and extremity pain, fever, vomiting, lethargy, and irritability.[14][15] About one to five in 1000 cases progress to paralytic disease, in which the muscles become weak, floppy and poorly controlled, and, finally, completely paralyzed; this condition is known as acute flaccid paralysis.[16] Depending on the site of paralysis, paralytic poliomyelitis is classified as spinal, bulbar, or bulbospinal. Encephalitis, an infection of the brain tissue itself, can occur in rare cases, and is usually restricted to infants. It is characterized by confusion, changes in mental status, headaches, fever, and, less commonly, seizures and spastic paralysis.[17]
