Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

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Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, specifically the motor neurons. Motor neurons carry signals from the brain and spinal cord to all of the muscles in your body. When a person has ALS, they are not able to generate enough motor neurons, and the brain cannot then initiate and control muscle movement. After some time, when the disease gets progressively worse, the patient has difficulty speaking, swallowing, breathing, etc. These kinds of tasks are essential to the body, so when it gets to a certain point, the patient dies. There are several other names for this disease, such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
Diagnosis
Signs and Symptoms
The earliest symptoms of ALS are weakness of the muscles, which is to be expected. These types of symptoms can involve having trouble swallowing, cramping, or stiffness of certain muscles. As the disease progresses, patients lose the ability to control all voluntary movements. Generally, sensory nerves and the autonomic nervous system are unaffected, meaning that individuals with ALS can hear, see, touch, smell, and taste properly. The types of muscles you are able to control by the early symptoms, all depends on which motor neurons are damaged first. The most common motor neurons that get damaged early on are the ones called “limb onset,” which have to do with the arms and legs. As expected, people with “limb onset” experience trouble when walking and running, such as stumbling, tripping, or dragging of the foot. Other types of “onsets” that ALS patients might experience, is “bulbar onset” and “respiratory onset.” Bulbar onset ALS patients have a difficulty time speak...

... middle of paper ...

...he National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The research is being done in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health. The purpose of this research is to find the cause or causes of ALS, understand the mechanisms involved in the progression of the disease, and develop effective treatments. Other research is being done by scientists to create biomarkers for ALS that could serve as tools for making a diagnosis. These biomarkers could potentially be taken from spinal fluid, the brain or spinal cord, or an electrophysiological measure of nerve and muscle ability to process an electrical signal.

Works Cited

http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/amyotrophiclateralsclerosis/detail_ALS.htm
http://www.alsa.org/about-als/diagnosing-als.html

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