Individuals with rare diseases can experience a wide range of neurological symptoms, including motor dysfunction, cognitive impairments, sensory disorders, behavioral problems, and epileptic seizures. According to the Spanish Society of Neurology, fifty percent of patients with these conditions develop nervous system complications.
In the Canary Islands, there are a total of 98,162 individuals with a confirmed diagnosis of rare diseases, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands. Nuria Ruiz, head of the Neurology service at La Candelaria Hospital, highlighted that the island of Tenerife accounts for 46 percent of these patients.
It is estimated that over eighty percent of rare diseases have a genetic origin. While many of them cannot be cured, their appearance in offspring can be prevented through strategies such as preimplantation diagnosis or by achieving early diagnosis through neonatal screening.
Preimplantation diagnosis is a technique used in assisted reproduction treatments to genetically analyze embryos before their transfer to the uterus, identifying potential genetic or chromosomal abnormalities.
Meanwhile, the Neonatal Screening Program, known as the heel prick test, conducts checks in the first few days of a baby's life to detect hereditary and metabolic pathologies. The Canary Islands have progressively expanded the number of tests studied, increasing from eight in 2021 to 49 in 2025, surpassing the common portfolio of the National Health System.
The Neurology service at La Candelaria Hospital has six professionals and two specific units to care for these patients: the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) unit and the Neuromuscular Diseases unit.
