Normally, some improvement appears in a few weeks, but severe residual symptoms and even disability may persist. The disease can be monophasic, i.e. a single episode with permanent remission afterwards. However, at least 85% of patients have a relapsing form of the disease with repeated attacks of transverse myelitis and/or<unk> neuritis. In patients with the monophasic form, the transverse myelitis and<unk> neuritis occur simultaneously or within days of each other. On the other hand, patients with the relapsing form are more likely to have weeks or months between the initial attacks, and to have better motor recovery after the initial transverse myelitis event. Relapses usually occur early, with about 55% of patients having a relapse in the first year and 90% in the first five years. It is possible that the relapsing form is related to the anti-AQP4+ seropositive status and the monophasic form related to its absence. Unlike MS, NMO rarely has a secondary progressive phase in which patients have increasing neurologic decline between attacks without remission. Instead, disabilities arise from the acute attacks. Approximately 20% of patients with monophasic NMO have permanent visual loss, and 30% have permanent paralysis in one or both legs. Among patients with relapsing NMO, 50% have blindness or paralysis within five years. In some patients (33% in one study), transverse myelitis in the cervical spinal cord resulted in respiratory failure and subsequent death. However, the<unk>  of NMO has widened, due to improved diagnostic criteria; and the options for treatment have improved. As a result, researchers believe these estimates will be lowered.
Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder
Alexander disease
Corneal-cerebellar syndrome
Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy
Subacute myelo-optic neuropathy
Canavan disease
Grinker myelinopathy
Toxic and nutritional optic neuropathy