ALS Disease
ALS Disease – May is ALS Awareness Month. It is time to build awareness for the disease often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. It is a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.
Patients will ALS suffer horribly. At the end of life, the only muscle that appears to be unaffected is the one used to blink one’s eye. Both the abilities of communication and swallowing are seriously affected. The mind, however, remains painfully sharp; so painful in fact that patients are well aware of the toll ALS is taking on their bodies.
Many patient’s families and friends have spoken out to build increased awareness of ALS. After several years of work at ALS Advocacy Days in Washington, D.C., Congress has passed a law that requires a registry of ALS patients to be maintained, much in the same way that cancer, heart disease and other diseases are tracked. This will allow the disease to be better understood by those who do research and to determine the exact number of cases in patients in the United States.
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