Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ALS By Laraib Sial Whats

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) By: Laraib Sial

What’s Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis? • Progressive neurodegenerative disease • Is a disease in the nervous system that attacks the neurons in the brain and spinal cord. • Also known as Lou Gehrig's disease • When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. • The longer you have the disease the affected person will lose more strength. It will be harder to move and eventually you won’t be able to move. • There is no clear cause of ALS.

MRI of a patients brain affected by ALS (right) compared to a normail brain (left)

Symptoms • Increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs. • When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons the muscles begin to become smaller (atrophy). • Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies. • Twitching and/or cramping of the muscles. • Signs that you have ALS will be mild muscle problems, trouble walking or running, trouble breathing, speech problems, trouble eating, and trouble writing.

Who is at risk? • More men get ALS than women. • Strikes usually between the 40 to 60 years of age. Once diagnosed the patients usually lives for another 3 to 5 years. • ALS affects 1 in 100, 000 people • You could randomly get ALS. • Can be passed through family. • Scientist, Stephen Hawking to the right, got ALS.

How is it treated? • There is no cure today that stops or reverses ALS. • FDA approved drug, riluzole, shows that it modestly slows the progression of ALS. • A ventilator will help with breathing since it becomes difficult to breath. • Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure. • There is no known way to prevent getting ALS.

Bibliography • http: //www. alsa. org/about-als/what-isals. html • http: //www. nlm. nih. gov/medlineplus/amyotr ophiclateralsclerosis. html • http: //www. mayoclinic. com/health/amyotrop hic-lateral-sclerosis/DS 00359 • http: //www. uchospitals. edu/onlinelibrary/content=P 00771