Genetic Disorders-Dwarfism

What is dwarfism?

Dwarfism is a disorder where the size of a living thing (person, animal or plant) is a lot below normal.

What are the symptoms of dwarfism?

The unique symptom of dwarfism is that the sufferer has a much shorter structure than a non-sufferer, in the same age group, would have.

What is the diagnosis of the disorder?

Short structure for a child's age is usually what creates attention to the child, medically.

Dwarfism is usually suspected when the baby has obvious abnormal features like an unusual face or shape of its skull and also when the parent/s are affected or abnormal arm span or and lower body ratio. Often bone x-rays are the key to diagnosing dwarfism but not always. If dwarfism is suspected blood sample are sent to a genetics clinic for diagnostic conformation.

Extreme shortness often indicates pituitary dwarfism (growth hormone deficiency)

Children who are just short without any other abnormalities is usually just genetic, more often than not if the person comes from a family with a history of relatively short people.

How can dwarfs treat their abnormality?

The treatment towards dwarfism coming from genetic defects is very limited and there is no cure.

Pituitary dwarfism (growth hormone deficiency) can be easily treated by introducing human growth hormones but only if treatment commences early enough (before completion of skeletal development). The dwarf being treated may still end up relatively short.

What are the social and employment problems/issues faced by dwarfs?

A dwarfs social and employment chances