Osteogenesis Imperfecta essays

Osteogenesis Imperfecta essays Osteogenesis Imperfecta is a bone disease that is otherwise known as brittle bone disease. It is a genetic disorder that affects some extra skeletal tissues, teeth, and heart valves. Those are the things that this disease affects but not so severely, it mostly causes people to have problems with their bones and muscles. This disease causes a persons bones to be very breakable and their muscles to become very weak, in the area of all the breaks. All of these things happen as a result of one out of two genes that carry the instructions for type one collagen, this collagen is what carries these deformities. These genes are a major part of a persons body, they are a part of the proteins in the bone and the skin. This is why a persons bones and muscles are so affected by this disease. There are several types and levels of this disease. Type I is the mildest form. It is inherited as a dominant trait; with this type your physical activity is limited. Type I mostly affects your legs and arms. Sometimes it appears that for a long while you will have no disability at all. Type II is lethal; it starts to effect a person while they are in the uterus or shortly after birth. This type effects the whole of a persons body. Most of the fractures will occur in the ribcage area, which could cause many different problems in other parts of the body. Type III is only a little more severe than Type I and type IV is only a little more severe than Type II. Type II can increase with in severity with age. Types I, III, and IV can start when a child begins to walk and can lessen in severity with age and then become more severe again if the person becomes pregnant or starts menopause. Some of the degenerative signs of OI: include hyper extensibility of the joints (double jointed-ness), also very thin almost see through skin, the persons teeth can be extremely prone to get cavities and break quite easily, the person could start to loo...