Abstract

In this article, neuromuscular diseases will be examined from both a psychological and an educational science perspective. Neuromuscular diseases are usually accompanied by many types of psychological strain as functional loss due to immobility or pain often corresponds to emotional impairment, such as fear or depression. The restrictions caused by the disease often remain life-long because as far as current knowledge is concerned no cure has been found yet. Patients' experiences have an immediate impact on both their beliefs about whether and how they can influence the course of their disease, and on their individual perception of their quality of life (Lohaus & Schmitt, 1989). A series of experiments showed that health-related control beliefs and individual quality of life of persons suffering from a serious chronic disease can be lower than of healthy persons (Benassi et al., 1988; Kleftaras, 1997). However, there are hardly any empirical findings pertaining to the area of neuromuscular diseases to this effect. Nevertheless, we may presume that health-related control beliefs and individual quality of life differ between patients with neuromuscular diseases and healthy persons. The following will summarize the findings from two studies, examining the extent of how persons with different neuromuscular diseases differ from healthy persons regarding their evaluation of their individual quality of life and healthrelated control beliefs. Textauszug (geändert)