Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Lou Gehrig’s Disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Lou Gehrig’s disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – a devastating neuromuscular disease that strikes adults in the prime of life – has puzzled physicians since it was first described in medical literature more than 100 years ago. ALS was made famous by baseball legend Lou Gehrig – but anyone can get this disease. ALS is a fatal disorder that causes progressive muscle paralysis. ALS is a terminal neurological disorder that robs patients of their ability to dress themselves, eat, walk, and speak. Patients generally survive three to five years after being diagnosed, with death generally occurring due to respiratory failure.
The disease is often detected in the first few weeks of life. Due to the buildup of lipids in the CNS, motor control, swallowing, and mental capabilities are impaired. In the very worst of cases most children do not live beyond two years, in mild cases some are known to live into their teen years. The trait is passed on when both parents carry a defective gene that moderates protein sphingomyelin. The likelihood of the child getting Farber’s is twenty five percent; there is a fifty percent chance that the child will carry the defective gene with no symptoms, a carrier.
There are different forms of the disease, and it is hard to predict if a person will experience a mild form or a severe one. People who experience sudden attacks of symptoms, which then improve or completely disappear are said to have the relapsing remitting form of the disease. This is the most common form. About two thirds of people with this end up going on to develop the secondary progressive form after 15 years (Multiple Sclerosis 2010). This is when their symptoms fail to recover and gradually worsen.
But among the supposedly injury-free remainder, the Purdue researchers believe tens of thousands of athletes routinely suffer serious brain injuries from high-impact collisions intrinsic to the game. When it comes to concussions there are three different grades. Grade one is simply remove from activity and examine immediately and if okay may return if no symptoms reoccur within 20 minutes. Then you move to grade two which is remove from activity and do not let the athlete to return. Athlete may return after a full week with no symptoms showing.
The doctor will help with any of the proper tests needed or other medical history that may or may not make a person eligible to participate. There are possible side effects from participating in research programs that are conducted by organizations such as Alzheimer’s Association. I personally think the volunteers that already have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease have nothing to lose since there is not a known cure for their disease anyways. The Alzheimer’s Association also holds a yearly Walk to End Alzheimer’s Disease through out the United States to raise the necessary funds to
Embryonic Stem Cell: What Can It Cure? Everyone grows old. No one knows exactly when they will lose their memory due to old age and the diseases that may soon follow. Embryonic stem cells (ESC) research proven time and time again, that it can help with memory loss from diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s. Restrictions on embryonic stem cells (ESC) research should be lifted around the world because the research has made tremendous progress to cure multiple diseases, aid in the recovery of spinal injury, and human ESC being used by scientist were going to be discarded.
I found that this was interesting because I did not know that on average only 7.6% of adults between the ages of 19-23 get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day. This would explain why 60% percent of all Americans are either overweight or obese. After the thirtieth day of Morgan Spurlock’s experiment, he had gained 24.5 pounds and increased his overall body mass by 13%. After stopping his experiment, it took several months to lose all of the weight that he had gained and to return to a normal healthy weight. I believe that although this experiment was very helpful it would have been scary for to have “catastrophic liver damage” or to be overweight because it would cause your heart to work harder and cause it to wear out faster.
Sickle Cell anemia is a genetic disorder that causes the red blood cells to assume an abnormal sickle shape, making it difficult for blood to flow through vessels and deliver oxygen throughout the body. During the 19th century sickle cell anemia was a deadly disease; the average child born lived to be only 14. However, over the last four decades with the development of technology, early intervention techniques and newborn screening programs have helped turn this disease into a manageable chronic illness. Nowadays, most patients with sickle cell disease live longer than in the old days. Penicillin, which is an antibiotic, was the first medication given to a patient because the first symptoms the patients died
According to the American Cancer Society, for all stages of pancreatic cancer combined, the one-year relative survival rate is 20%, and the five-year rate is 4%. These low survival rates are attributable to the fact that fewer than 20% of patients' tumors are confined to the pancreas at the time of diagnosis; in most cases, the malignancy has already progressed to the point where surgical removal is impossible. A tumor may grow in the pancreas without signs and symptoms being noticeable at first, which can lead to the cancer being further
Health Care System has along way to go before it becomes sufficient to benefit the citizens of this country. The elderly have known this longer than any other citizen. In 1999, the Health Care Financing Administration (1999) stated that “80 percent of the 65+ population have one or more chronic diseases, 50 percent have 2 or more, and 24 percent have problems so sever as to limit their ability to perform one of more activities of daily living”. Our health care industry has invested and spent billions of dollars researching the treatment of these chronic diseases as they pertain to the younger population, but very rarely address research and control of diseases that pertain to the elderly. If reasoning was put into this process, the facts are that by treating the young, we have allowed them to live longer, yet as they live longer and age, we no longer consider it important to treat their illnesses and diseases.