Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is often called Lou Gehrig's disease, because Lou Gehrig was a baseball player who contracted the disease.
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| Lou Gehrig |
Part 1: Basically, Amyotrophic means no muscle nourishment. This will make the muscle waste away. Lateral refers to the spinal cord, which is the area where the nerves degenerate. This leads to sclerosis, which is scarring or hardening. Your spinal cord degenerating leads to not being able to move your legs and arms, having trouble with speech, and you die when the muscles that control your breathing don't work. The worst, most horrible part is, your brain doesn't degenerate, so you can send impulses to your legs but they won't work. So your basically trapped inside your body.
But there is a cure and Stephen Hawking will tell you. While sounding like a robot.
Scientists saved him, hooked up a machine to him so he can talk again, but he sounds like a robot. And he's a scientist and he made the black hole theory. I got my information on part 1 here.
Part 2: Though we are still not exactly sure what causes ALS, it is believed to be found from mutations in a gene that produces enzyme SOD1.
ALS is mostly found in white males in their sixties, though my great uncle got it early and he was an African-American. These statistics are for most of the population.
The verbal complications of ALS can be treated with a computer, as shown by Mr. Hawking. The early symptoms are very small and often overlooked, like cramps, muscle weakness in arms or legs, and involuntary twitches. Then it leads to not being able to walk and death, later on. Part 2 info was found right here.
Part 3: More early stages of ALS include clumsiness and weakness in hands, tripping, and keeping a good posture. More possible causes for ALS are smoking, lead exposure, and 5 to 10% of ALS patients inherited it. Also I should note that your pencil is not actually lead and writing will not cause ALS.
People with ALS sometimes also start struggling with memory, and some are also diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, which I guess is dementia that affects the front of your temporal lobe?
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| Stephen Hawking. He doesn't look too great but he's smarter than you. |
Part 2: Though we are still not exactly sure what causes ALS, it is believed to be found from mutations in a gene that produces enzyme SOD1.
ALS is mostly found in white males in their sixties, though my great uncle got it early and he was an African-American. These statistics are for most of the population.
The verbal complications of ALS can be treated with a computer, as shown by Mr. Hawking. The early symptoms are very small and often overlooked, like cramps, muscle weakness in arms or legs, and involuntary twitches. Then it leads to not being able to walk and death, later on. Part 2 info was found right here.
Part 3: More early stages of ALS include clumsiness and weakness in hands, tripping, and keeping a good posture. More possible causes for ALS are smoking, lead exposure, and 5 to 10% of ALS patients inherited it. Also I should note that your pencil is not actually lead and writing will not cause ALS.
People with ALS sometimes also start struggling with memory, and some are also diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, which I guess is dementia that affects the front of your temporal lobe?
Part 3 was found here, and I hope you learned something.
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