Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
Would you like to know what lab results mean? DDxHub - Differential Diagnosis Hub helps to understand and explains your blood test.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) |
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Would you like to know what lab results mean? DDxHub - Differential Diagnosis Hub helps to understand and explains your blood test. |
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You have symptoms and blood work results. How do they correlate? What is the health condition? Some disorders have similar signs and laboratory values. DDxHub helps to define a right diagnosis. Run DDxHub now and enter symptoms and test results. |
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All information on this page is intended for your general knowledge only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See Additional Information |
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is a serious neurological disease that causes muscle weakness, disability and eventually death. ALS is often called Lou Gehrig's disease, after the famous baseball player who was diagnosed with it in 1939. In the USA, ALS and motor neuron disease (MND) are sometimes used interchangeably. Worldwide, ALS occurs in 1 to 3 people per 100,000. In the vast majority of cases, 90 to 95 percent, doctors don't yet know why ALS occurs. About 5 to 10 percent of ALS cases are inherited. ALS often begins with muscle twitching and weakness in an arm or leg, or with slurring of speech. Eventually, ALS affects your ability to control the muscles needed to move, speak, eat and breathe. Early signs and symptoms of ALS include: Difficulty lifting the front part of your foot and toes (footdrop); Weakness in your leg, feet or ankles; Hand weakness or clumsiness; Slurring of speech or trouble swallowing; Muscle cramps and twitching in your arms, shoulders and tongue; The disease frequently begins in your hands, feet or limbs, and then spreads to other parts of your body. As the disease advances, your muscles become progressively weaker until they're paralyzed. It eventually affects chewing, swallowing, speaking and breathing. 