How ageing affects people living with multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that affects the brain and spinal cord. As people with MS live longer, it is important to understand how ageing affects the course of the disease. Women with MS face particular challenges during midlife and menopause, but this has not been well studied.

Dr Jessica Redmond will explore how ageing and menopause affect symptoms, thinking and memory, and quality of life in people with MS. She and her team will use two studies to investigate this:

• A large national survey of women with MS, looking at how menopause symptoms and life stage affect MS experiences.
• A detailed study of how well images of the back of the eye can detect signs of faster ageing in people with MS and whether this can help predict disability. This imaging will also be compared with brain scans, blood tests, and thinking tests to see whether it can better detect signs of faster ageing.

Dr Redmond hopes to find patterns that show who is more likely to have worsening symptoms over time. This could help doctors better support women with MS during key stages of life, such as menopause. These patterns may also point to new ways of predicting and managing disease progression. The overall goal is to improve care and outcomes for people with MS as they get older.

People with MS have helped design this research, making sure it focuses on real-world concerns such as fatigue, memory problems, and everyday function.