Springbok legend suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease
Former Springbok skipper and Rugby World Cup-winning scrum-half Joost
van der Westhuizen has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, a
newspaper reported Thursday.
Doctors have suspected since May that the 40-year-old suffered from a
motor neuron disease.
After visiting Erik Pioro, a neuromuscular specialist in Cleveland,
Ohio, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known
as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, The Beeld newspaper said.
“Dr Pioro confirmed that Joost does indeed suffer from ALS, which
gives him a 80 percent chance to live between two and five years,” Van
der Westhuizen’s South African doctor Jody Pearl told the paper.
The disease is incurable and almost always fatal. The illness
gradually leads to paralysis, speech and swallowing difficulties and
problems with breathing.
Sufferers usually die within three to five years. British scientist
Stephen Hawking is one of the more famous people with the disease, which
strikes one to three people out of every 100,000.
Van der Westhuizen shares the record as try scorer for South Africa
at 38 with wing Bryan Habana and also captained the 1999 World Cup team,
retiring after playing in the 2003 tournament.
AFP
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