Lou Gehrig's Disease

[Date of Submission]

Abstract

The paper aims to make a study of the Lou Gehrig's disease, its causes, factors, symptoms, signs and tests, treatment, support groups, expectations, complications and prevention.

Lou Gehrig's Disease

Introduction

Lou Gehrig's disease is also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or abbreviated as ALS. The name is Greek in origins and stands as "a" meaning without, "myo" meaning muscle, "trophic" meaning nourishment, lateral meaning side and sclerosis meaning scarring or hardening. Literally meaning of amyotrophic is muscles that have lost nourishment. The effect of this loss of nourishment is weaker and smaller muscles. The Lateral part of the meaning signifies that the disease only influences the sides of the human spine (spinal cord). That is the part of the chord where the nerves lie. They serve to provide nourishment to the muscles. The sclerosis part of the name signifies that the 'ill' portion of the cord gets a scarred or hardened tissue instead of the healthy nerves.

The ALS is known as Lou Gehrig's disease since it is named after a very famous baseball player who also features in the hall of fame. He played for the New York Yankees but unfortunately was found to be suffering from ALS in the 1930. It is known with a variety of different names in different countries. In Australia and England ALS is known as the (MND) Motor Neurone Disease. In France, it is named as Maladie de Charcot, after Jean Martin Charcot, a French doctor. He mentioned ALS for the first time in 1869.s

ALS or Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in simple terms is a disease that affects the nerve cellso f the spinal cord and brain which is responsible for the control of the movement of voluntary muscle.

Thesis Statement

“To study the Lou Gehrig's disease in detail, the causes, effects, treatments and prevention.”

Causes

Roughly 10% of all the cases of ALS are a result of defects of genetics. The cause for the remaining 90% is still not known.

In Lou Gehrig's disease the neurons (nerve cells) die or are wasted away and become in capable of sending messages to the muscles any longer. This act leads to the weakening of the muscles, inability to move the limbs and body and twitching. As the condition deteriorates, the chest muscles slowly and steadily stop responding, ultimately leaving the person unable to breathe without help.

It has been found to approx. affect around 5 people out of 100,000 in the whole world.

As mentioned before, aside from the hereditary factor, there have been no determinants of ALS in individuals.

Symptoms

The symptoms of ALS usually do not start surfacing until the person has crossed the age of 50 years. However it is possible that the disease can start its work in young people as well. People who suffer from ALS generally complain of weak muscular strength, loss of coordination, which steadily worsens with time until even performing the most common routine tasks becomes a chore for the patients. Tasks like swallowing, getting out of a chair and going up stairs,

The muscles allocated for swallowing ...