How do doctors make the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis?
Doctors do not have a specific test which tells them that a person has multiple sclerosis. It can therefore be very difficult for a doctor to be sure that somebody’s symptoms are due to multiple sclerosis. The most important means by which a doctor makes the diagnosis is by listening carefully to the person’s description of their symptoms (the history), and then examining the nervous system carefully to look for any signs of things not working as they should (the neurological examination). Even with all of today’s technological advances in medicine it is still the history and neurological examination which are most helpful to doctors to help them try and decide whether or not somebody is affected by multiple sclerosis.
