Lou Gehrig’s disease also identified as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive, lethal disease of the motor neurons (nerve cells) that direct the skeletal muscles of the body. The disease typically produces a slaying away of the muscles that have lost their nerve provide, resulting in failing and paralysis. There are also signs of spasticity, or firmness, of the muscles and inflated reflexes. Eventually, ALS results in total paralysis and respiratory failure. The senses and mental power are not pretentious. ALS received its medical name in 1874 from the French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot. Charcot had observed the wasting away of a patient’s muscles (known medically as amyotrophy) and the scarring and hardening, or sclerosis, of the bundles of motor neurons running down each side (sideways) through the spinal cord. The sickness is also named for Lou Gehrig, the well-known baseball player who died in 1941 after developing the sickness.
ALS affects about 60,000 people globally. Males are thought to be a little more expected than females to grow the disease and there is an inexplicable increased incidence of ALS in Guam and certain areas of Japan. Cases in which there is no family history of the disease are called sporadic ALS. This shape of ALS more often than not occurs at the rate of about one new case per 50,000 people per year. In the United States there are roughly 30,000 afflicted individuals. Familial ALS, in which the disease is inherited, accounts in about 5 percent of all cases or about 1,500 to 3,000 cases at any given time. More than 3,000 Canadians have ALS. The onset, or first appearance, of ALS usually occurs between the ages of 40 and 70, although it may affect people anywhere from 20 to 90 years of age.........
