Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a brain disease that affects the part of your brain, brain stem, and spinal cord that controls muscles we control by thinking about, and don't move by them selves (like your heart does). You have two sections of neurons that mainly do this, the upper and the lower. The upper is in your brain and the lower is in your spinal cord. the neurons in these parts of brain, spinal cord, and brain stem are called "Motor neurons". The disease is were the motor neurons slowly decrease in function and eventually stop sending messages to muscles like the ones that control your arms and legs. The victims amyotrophic lateral sclerosis also lose function in there muscles in the diaphragm and chest resulting in failure to breathe without some kind of respiratory system. if you want to know ALS is sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease, read this artical, Its about a baseball player named Lou Gehrig who had ALS. ALS is fatal, and most patients die within 4-5 years. But some (about 10%) live for 10 years.
If you want to know more about ALS go to this site.
No comments:
Post a Comment