'ALS Lou Gehrig Disease\r'

'Amyotrophic Lateral induration (amyotrophic lateral induration), also known as Lou Gehrig infirmity, is a fatal, progressive tense disease that affects the push neurons of the body. Attacking the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, ALS patients lose musculus control and thus becomes paralyze (ALS Association, n. d. ). According to the ALS Association, 15 people are diagnosed with ALS all(prenominal) day and that two per 100,000 people deaths are overdue to ALS (n. d. ). Patients stricken with the disease has a pick rate of two to five years from the flak of symptoms (n.d. ).However, with medical researches and break dones, twenty percent of ALS patients abbreviate to live for five more years subsequently being diagnosed (n. d. ). ALS is a disease of the middle-age, intend people falling in the 40-60 years gray-haired are more probably to be untune (Curtis and McDonald, 1994, p. 1047). In addition, men are more likely to develop ALS than women (p. 1047). Individ uals who get ALS from puerility or early adulthood are exalted and may have caught an inherited type of the disease (p.\r\n1047). ALS is part of the force neuron unhealthiness which causes muscle failing and wither (Forshew and Hulihan, 2002). Atrophy is delimit as â€Å"wasting away or passage of muscle” (2002). When only the upper neurons are affected, the derange is known as primary lateral sclerosis (2002). When it is the lower motor neurons, it is called spinal muscular atrophy or progressive muscular atrophy (2002). In the case of ALS, both upper and lower motor neurons are affected.\r\nDegeneration of the upper neurons solutions in hyperreflexia, spasticity and a Babinski reflex while the lower motor neurons result in muscular atrophy, fasciculation or skin twitches and weakness (Cotran, Kumar and Robbins, 1994, p. 1336). French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot was the one who ab initio recognized the disease in 1880s (Forshew and Hulihan, 2002). The enclosur e amyotrophic is rooted in Greek and the term bottom be subdivided into syllables: â€Å"a” meaning no or negative, â€Å"myo” pertains to muscle, and â€Å"trophic” for nutrient; so in essence, amyotrophic actor no muscle nutrient (2002).\r\nIt can be noned that nutrient in this sense does not pertain to food nourishment, rather signals coming from motor neurons to the muscles. The terms lateral and sclerosis may withal be defined. The upper motor neurons pass through the lateral edges of the spinal cord. When the neurons do not cipher properly, signals to the muscles are absent, thus the muscles become weak, shrink and paralyzed/. When these neurons die, the lateral portions of the spinal cord becomes marked and scarred.\r\n sclerosis is the term utilise in medicine to summons to hardening and scarring (2002). Lateral sclerosis, therefore, is the scarring â€Å"along the sides of the spinal cord caused by the death of upper motor neurons” (2002). Dr. Charcot used the term amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to refer to wasted muscles and scarring of lateral sides in the spinal cord. The figure below illustrates how the nerve cells look like in form person and an ALS-afflicted individual.\r\n'