Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research Paper

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also called ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a genetic disease that affects the nerve cells that control muscle movement. ALS is a unique disease by the symptoms it causes when it is just beginning, the way it effects the people who have it, the people who are effected by it, and the way it is passed down from generation to generation in families. The symptoms of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis are easy to overlook. The first symptoms of ALS may include twitching, cramping, stiffness, or weakness by the people who have it. Slurred speech is one of the next symptoms that will occur. Eventually, people with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis will loose much of their muscle control, and they
will become dependent on the help of others. The symptoms of ALS are a serious issue that should be a concern for anyone who has experienced them over a long time. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a serious, life-threatening disease to anyone who is diagnosed with it. There are many different types of the ALS disease, but each type has similar effects on the people who have it. After the beginning symptoms of the disease occur, the person will become noticeably weaker to the point where they might have to be placed into a wheelchair with someone to push them in order to be transported. They may also have trouble with something as simple as breathing. Respiratory failure is actually the leading cause of death for people with the disease. ALS sometimes develops with frontotemporal degeneration. This causes the personalities of the individual to change, which dramatically changes their ability to socially communicate with others efficiently. Another type of ALS is ALS-parkinsonism-dementia complex. This rare form of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis causes people to have symptoms of Parkinsonism, a disease which causes abnormal movements, and dementia, a disease that causes a loss of memory, to develop with the symptoms of ALS. ALS is a serious disease that can have some extremely severe effects on people who have it. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis can affect just about anyone, but some people may be more prone to receive it than others.
Ninety percent of ALS cases in people is "sporadic ALS," which means that the person did not receive the disease from anyone else in their family. The other ten percent affected have cases of "familial ALS" (FALS). FALS is passed down through families. These people may have ALS their entire life, but it will only usually show up in their lives between the ages of forty and sixty. It is rare for ALS to appear in people under the age of twenty. Unlike some other diseases, Gender does not affect the chances of receiving ALS. Males have the same chance of receiving the disease as females do. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a unique disease because of the diverse groups of people that it can
affect. Familial ALS is distinctive in the way that it passes ALS down through generations of a particular family.
There are multiple ways that the ALS disease is passed down. FALS is generally autosomal dominant, which gives the affected person's children a fifty percent chance of having the disease if the parent had one normal gene and one mutated gene. ALS may also have an autosomal recessive pattern, which would require both parents to have a single mutated gene in order to pass the disease to the next generation. ALS is rarely passed down by an X-linked dominant pattern. To inherit ALS this way, the offspring ,if it is a female, needs to receive a mutated X chromosome from both parents. If the offspring is a male, only one X chromosome is needed to inherit the disease. FALS shows it's individuality by the many ways it transfers diseases from one generation in a family to the
next. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is one of the most interesting genetic diseases by the symptoms it causes when it is just beginning, the way it effects the people who have it, the people who are effected by it, and the way it is passed down from generation to generation in families. ALS is one of the most unique genetic diseases with its many distinguishing characteristics.