Multiple System Atrophy (MSA)

It begins insidiously. Perhaps you notice that your movements are becoming less sure — that your gait is losing fluidity, that your hands no longer grasp as deftly, that your balance wavers where it once stood firm. Perhaps it is the voice growing quieter, or the bladder no longer obeying. Your body, which until now has functioned like a well-rehearsed orchestra, is gradually losing its coordination. Individual systems — movement, balance, circulation, bladder function — fall out of sync. Not one after another, but on several levels simultaneously, as though the interplay itself is disintegrating.