Zazangels.com
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Michael Zaslow's ZazAngels
Description
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Motor Neurone Disease is a progressive, usually fatal neuromuscular disease. It attacks motor neurones in the spinal cord and lower brain which transmit signals from the brain to the voluntary muscles throughout the body. When motor neurones die as a result of ALS/MND, the ability of the brain to control muscle movement is lost. When muscles fail to receive messages, they weaken and waste away (atrophy). ALS/MND is also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease and Maladie de Charcot, after Jean-Martin Charcot, the French neurologist who first described it in 1869.
The groups of muscles affected and the order in which they are affected varies from one person to another. Early symptoms usually include tripping, dropping things, abnormal fatigue of the arms and/or legs, slurred speech, muscle cramps and twitches (called fasciculations) and mood swings including uncontrollable periods of laughing or crying. The hands and feet may be affected first, causing difficulty in walking or using the hands for the activities of daily living such as dressing, washing and buttoning clothes.
About 25% of patients have bulbar onset, which means that the throat, voice and swallowing are first affected. About 50% have arm onset, and 25% leg onset. The disease frequently takes its toll before being positively diagnosed: many patients are significantly debilitated before learning that they have ALS/MND. Muscle wasting gradually spreads to the muscles of the trunk of the body, and the disease eventually affects swallowing, chewing and breathing. Complete paralysis ultimately results, usually occurring within two to five years of diagnosis. When the diaphragm is attacked, the patient is unable to breathe unaided and faces permanent ventilatory support in order to survive.
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