What president had polio?

Answer 1

Franklin Delano Roosevelt lost use of his legs due to poliomyelitis. He got it at age 39 in August of 1921 when he was vacationing at Campobello Island in New Brunswick. Although he was officially diagnosed as a polio case, many people now believe that he had Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Answer 2

In 1921 Franklin Roosevelt contracted polio, a terrifying and incurable disease that left him paralyzed in his legs. Only through an arduous rehabilitation process, and with the support of his wife, his children, and his close confidantes, was FDR able to regain some use of his legs. In the 1920s, he invested a considerable part of his fortune in rehabilitating a spa in Warm Springs, Georgia, whose curative waters aided his own rehabilitation. In later years, the cottage he built there would be called "the Little White House."
FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was the President who had Polio, but the disease that struck him in the prime of his life may not have been polio, as his doctors and history have believed. An analysis suggests that Roosevelt, whose work on behalf of polio patients gave rise to the March of Dimes, instead may have had Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a disease barely known by doctors of the day.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston reviewed Roosevelt's personal letters, medical reports and biographies that described the disease that FDR had in 1921 when he was 39. Armond Goldman, emeritus professor of pediatrics, and colleagues note that some of FDR's symptoms were rare in polio, but fit a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré (GHEE-yan BAH-ray), an autoimmune disease that damages motor and sensory nerves.

Their diagnosis, in the Journal of Medical Biography, published by The Royal Society of Medicine in London, is based on an analysis that examined the frequency of paralytic polio and Guillain-Barré in adults of Roosevelt's age at that time and the likelihood of his symptoms occurring in either of the two diseases.

The paralysis that crept up both sides of FDR's body from legs to chest over a 10- to 13-day period is more typical of Guillain-Barré than polio, in which weakness or paralysis occur in a matter of three to five days and affect one side more than the other. The authors point out that at the time of FDR's infection, polio was rampant, but it rarely struck anyone over age 30. FDR also suffered temporary facial paralysis, bladder and bowel problems and severe sensitivity to touch, none of which were common in polio.

All those symptoms are consistent with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, named for the scientists who described the illness in two French soldiers in 1916.

Answer 3

FDR (Franklin Delanor Roosevelt) HAD Polio, but he died a long time ago. He was in a wheelchair for most of his presidency, though he hid this fact from the American public because he didn't want them to think he was weak.

Answer 4

Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR

Answer 5

Franklin D Roosevelt

Answer 6

Franklin D. Rosevelt

Answer 7

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Answer 8

FDR