ALS is a rare disease that involves ruining your main motor skills that you need every single day.
This disease is a progressive disease so there is no cure for it yet. Furthermore, the upper and lower motor neurons die out so you unfortunately weaken and lose brain signals that help with the motor neurons. To begin, there are several initial symptoms of ALS. The earliest symptoms of ALS are muscle weakness or stiffness. A few more examples are slurred and nasal speech, muscle cramps, and difficulty chewing and swallowing.
“For many individuals the first sign of ALS may appear in the hand or arm as they experience difficulty with simple tasks such as buttoning a shirt, writing, or turning a key in a lock”(National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). ALS can happen to anyone, no one is limited to this disease. ALS affects every race and every single different ethnic background.
Some examples of races are caucasians and non-hispanics. Continuing on, there is a range of ages that you can get this disease. The range of age you can get this disease is 55 through 75 years old. Unfortunately, men are more likely to get ALS than women. This disease can very well be genetic as well. The physical pain and harm that comes first is different to everyone but the pain is pretty similar to each other.
Usually the muscles atrophy and spread to other places in the body. Soon the person affected develops moving and breathing problems. “Eventually individuals will not be able to stand or walk, get in or out of bed on their own, or use their hands and arms”(National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke).
People affected with ALS still have their memory and can tell that they are losing movement privileges and so they become depressed or upset. Lastly, people with ALS lose the ability to breathe properly and on their own so they go on a ventilator. Some additional facts about ALS are that ALS is not contagious. Even though ALS is not contagious doesn’t mean that it is not genetic. Next, “It is not uncommon to have periods lasting weeks to months where there is very little or no loss of function”(ALS Association). Another fact is that military veterans are more likely to get ALS than non military veterans. Military veterans are twice as likely to become diagnosed with ALS.
One more fact is 6,000 people have been diagnosed every single year.
