In this section you can find more information about the different diseases the children, adolescents and young adults at the Sternenbrücke children's hospice suffer from, such as metabolic and muscle disorders, neurological diseases as well as physical abnormalities and cancer.
We always respond to the different challenges posed by these diseases with individual and sensitive care and attention.
If the body lacks certain important substances or produces, stores or retains too many of them, this interferes with the body's systemic circulation. This in turn can result in metabolic disorders and can negatively impact the regulatory processes of hormones. These are usually life-shortening hereditary diseases such as JNCL (Batten disease), MPS (mucopolysaccharidoses) and leukodystrophies.
Children who are born with a metabolic disorder initially appear to be perfectly healthy – after some time, however, sometimes months or years later, severe abnormalities emerge. They might lose their sight or hearing, gradually lose their motor skills such as walking and later even simple grasping. They often have vestibular and coordination disorders and eventually will no longer be able to speak and have very few facial expressions. The course of the disease is degenerative, which means that eventually the children are entirely dependent on outside help, sit in a wheelchair and only move involuntarily. The life expectancy of young people suffering from a metabolic disease depends on the disease and its course. Many sufferers, however, die in childhood or adolescence.
The ancient Greek word "neũron" means nerve. Neurological diseases thus damage "the nerves", the brain or the spinal cord. Because the body is criss-crossed by nerve pathways that pass on stimuli from and to the organs, the symptoms of neurological disorders are often very complex, as in the case of hydranencephaly, encephalopathy, asphyxia and similar diseases.
Children who suffer from neurological diseases such as following nerve damage as a result of a lack of oxygen during birth, are often severely affected from infancy. They may have difficulties breathing and swallowing, do not really learn to sit or walk and often suffer from spastic paralysis, all of which get worse with age. These children also depend on outside help around the clock.
The progressive muscular wasting in these diseases means that the muscles become increasingly weak; examples include muscular dystrophy – muscle wasting as a result of the lack of a specific protein – or muscular atrophy, where the nerve cells of the spinal cord are affected and do not pass any information to the muscles.
Muscle diseases are also usually degenerative. Following a generally normal development in infancy, the children gradually lose their muscular strength, either do not learn to walk at all or unlearn it again, and the same applies to standing and unsupported sitting. They also lose the strength in their arms and hands – and finally the respiratory muscles are affected, so that children can only be kept alive with artificial respiration.
All malignant diseases that involve the uncontrolled proliferation of cells are referred to as cancer. These cancer cells can destroy the surrounding tissue and metastasise. In most cases the cancer originates from a single neoplastic cell with malignant characteristics, such as brain tumours, neuroblastoma and leukaemia.