The diagnosis of PPMS has nothing to do with the speed of disability onset. It only describes the course of the disease, which is only progressive, without any relapses or remissions. This is different than SPMS, as SPMS by definition is preceded by a patient going through an RRMS stage. PPMS and SPMS look very similar, but PPMS patients are progressive from the outset, and SPMS patients go through an extended period of relapses and remissions before the disease becomes strictly progressive.

As far as the speed of that progression goes, it varies widely from patient to patient. Some patients diagnosed with PPMS have very slow progression, and can remain quite active for many, many years. Others are hit extremely hard by the disease, and may be bedridden within a year or two. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

The most unfortunate aspect of the diagnosis of PPMS is the lack of effective treatments. Many treatments have been tried, and their efficacy varies from patient to patient, but none have been found to be very effective.

Hopefully, with continued research into neuroregeneration and neuroprotection, we will see therapies developed that can be applied to progressive patients sometime in the foreseeable future. Stem cells offer great hope, and several trials using stem cells for neuro repair are currently underway.