What are Duchenne and Becker Muscular Dystrophies?
Muscular dystrophies are genetic disorders characterized by progressive muscle wasting and weakness that begin with microscopic changes in the muscle. As muscles degenerate over time, the person’s muscle strength declines. Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) was first described by the French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne in the 1860s. Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) is named after the German doctor Peter Emil Becker, who first described this variant of DMD in the 1950s. In DMD, boys begin to show signs of muscle weakness as early as age 3. The disease gradually weakens the skeletal, or voluntary, muscles, those in the arms, legs and trunk. By the early teens or even earlier, the boy’s heart and respiratory muscles also may be affected. BMD is a much milder version of DMD. Its onset is usually in the teens or early adulthood, and the course is slower and far less predictable than that of DMD. (Though DMD and BMD affect boys almost exclusively, in rare cases they can affect
