Pain Management as a specialty is concerned with the prevention, evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of painful disorders. The diagnosis relies on a thorough history and pain-oriented physical examination, including interpretation of diagnostic tests, and may require specialized diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
The simple answer is that he was not always as disabled as he is today. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1963. The doctors initially gave him two years to live but the disease's onset was not as rapid as they had expected. Two years later, he was still walking, albeit with a stick. Hawking was married to his first wife, Jane Wilde, on the 14th of July 1965.
Scientists also don't know for certain what causes ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's disease) in general and are studying genetic and environmental links, the CDC notes. But although the underlying reasons for Hawking's long-term survival are unclear, researchers' thoughts on it aren't. He is exceptional, neurology professor Nigel Leigh told the British Medical Journal in 2002. I am not aware of anyone else who has survived with [ALS] as long.. What also makes Hawking's case unusual is that he was informed of his illness so young: The average age for diagnosis is 55, the Post notes, though Hawking's early onset may have helped him in the long run.