Tamás’s mother noticed that her little child was weak and had difficulty moving. He could not support his head, and could only use one hand and one leg while crawling. The child was 11 months old when a genetic test showed he had Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy (DMD). DMD is an incurable, congenital genetic disease. As the disease progresses, muscle cells are replaced with adipose and connective tissue, incapable of doing muscle work. As a result, the patient becomes weaker and weaker, and intelligence also begins to decline. With this kind of condition children are typically confined to wheelchairs by the age of 10 and rarely live beyond the age of around 20.
Tamás started using ‘You know what’ when he was one year old. He became stronger and began to improve rapidly. He started to walk and began to speak and communicate in coherent sentences.
