Amyotrophic Lateral Disease

Those who suffer from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis live the rest of their lives bedridden, or are embedded to a chair. The average patient diagnosed with ALS are males between the ages of 40-70. Athletes who are diagnosed in their late 20’s due to repetitive head injuries typically live 3-5 years after the diagnosis. Those who are fortunate enough may live 10 years post

ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) or Lou Gehrig’s Disease is a classified as a degenerative neurological disorder that inhibits motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain to function properly. This disease eventually results in paralysis and imminent death over a period of time. ALS patients have anywhere from a few months, to a couple years to live after diagnosis since their nervous systems are slowly destroyed, rendering the body useless, and sustaining life impossible.

ALS and CTE are much more than just the Ice Bucket Challenge or being hit in the head. ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which affects the brain and spinal cord. Similarly, CTE is a brain disease caused by brain trauma. CTE stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Both ALS and CTE are caused by head trauma and concussions. A concussion is a temporary unconsciousness because of a blow to the head. Athletes have the highest risk of being diagnosed with these diseases because have a higher chance of a of hitting their head because of the physical activities. It is not fair for athletes to have to face those challenges but, at the end of the day one has the choice of taking the risks while being an athlete.

Diagnosed at such a young age, usually non-athletes get diagnosed with ALS at the age of 40-70 with average age at 55. Non-athletes don't suffer with injury to the head as much as Athletes do. Athletes however, tend to be diagnosed with ALS between 20’s and 30’s. CTE was discovered in 3 of 14 high school players and 48 of 53 college players. One Athlete named Junior Seau, who committed suicide in May, two years after retiring as one of the linebackers in the NFL. Seau suffered from the type of Chronic brain damage. The family of Seau stated “ a lot of head-to-head collisions over the course of 20 years of playing in the NFL, developed the detention of his brain and ability to think logically” (paragraph 4), resulted to the disease of CTE.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS is a disease caused by concussions and head trauma. ALS is a rare neurological disease that mainly involves nerve cells, which control voluntary muscle movement, such as breathing, talking, or chewing. With this being a progressive disease that has no cure it has made a tremendous impact for check ups after blows to the head. A hit to the head does not always mean you have a concussion, but with symptoms and side effects the athlete should not take a chance and get it checked out immediately. This is more of a physical incapacity disease. ALS has become a common disease for athletes in the mid-twenties, and life expectancy is very slim once the diagnosis has taken place. The main reported life periods for ALS athletes has been 3-5 years, but with medication and treatments it has had higher life expectancies about 20% have 5 years, 10% have 10 years, and 5% have 20 years. The athletes lives have changed from the beginning of the diagnoses till the end of the lives they do live with the disease. Being a scary thing to think about athletes do tend to have the ability to walk away at retirement perfectly clear from ALS, which is a win.

The word “Amyotrophic” comes from the Greek language meaning “no nourishment”. ALS causes muscle weakness, problems with coordination, stiff muscles, loss of muscles, muscle spasms, over reactive reflexes, and fatigue. The symptoms of ALS increase rapidly, which makes an individual lose control of the muscles and begin having slurred speech. The arms and legs begin to feel weak and tired unexpectedly, while also experiencing cramps. When a medical professional diagnose someone with ALS they have about 2-5 years to live on average. Although about 10% of people with ALS live up to 10 years with the disease, while 25% live up to 5 years and 50% live up to 3 years. The average age that an individual is diagnosed with ALS is 55, but varies from the ages of

Lou Gehrig was not the first person diagnosed with ALS, but he was diagnosed with ALS when the media started to begin and there was television . ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. The disease affects all motor skills and muscle movement in the body which causes the muscles to become malnourished. When diagnosed with ALS, the face, arms, and legs slowly begin to paralyze and lose control of speech. The average time of life after diagnosis is two to five years and the average age to get ALS is fifty-five. However athletes are being diagnosed with ALS at ayounger age. Researchers think it’s probably due to the fact that they get hit in the head more often. ALS is without a doubt the most horrific disease because your brain is perfectly fine and you watch yourself slowly die without being to do anything about

Professional athletes have been dealing with an issue of getting these horrific diseases that ends the player's career . Researches want to know why this is so, and they have found the solution. It all starts when the athlete were at a younger age. The professional athletes had a higher chance to get ALS or CTEs when playing a physical sport for school or a recreational team. When the Professional athletes were teenagers the rules were more lenient than how it is now. Today there are many rules that will prevent the athlete to get a head injury like, the padding in the helmet and no helmet to helmet rule in football. The players of the game should be aware and cautious of what they are getting themselves into so the sports industry should not

Mental health is a fragile thing and terminal conditions such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) greatly impact it. ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that attacks a person’s physical function. It progressively saps a person’s strength and leads to the failure of organs. Unfortunately, this disease is not fully understood and is difficult to diagnose (Rosenfeld & Strong, 2015, pp. 318-319). Knowing fully well that this disease is a death sentence, ALS patients generally have a negative outlook and this significantly influences their mental health. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis can be diagnosed mainly through the medical perspective and has been extensively researched to determine the components and controversies it contains.

Athletes should be put through training that is informative about the dangers of ALS and CTE. Helmets and other protective gear should have softer padding that does not deplete the protection of the gear. As in soccer being hit in the head or using your head to make a goal is inevitable. However, some players should learn to moderate the constant head bunting to prevent them from getting seriously injured. In the boxing league or sport constant hitting to the head is the norm is the sport. In order to stop boxers from getting ALS or Parkinson’s the guidelines should have a rule stating that a boxer must take time for their head to heal completely to avoid any serious injury. The money that these sports make needs to put towards research and development to protect the athletes from getting these

There are few moments in life seared into your memory so vividly that you can recall the details of that event, even years later. One of those days, for me, was May 29th, 2010. I remember where I was when I got the phone call and who was in the room with me. I remember the clock read 6:57 p.m. For some strange reason, I remember what I was wearing. I also remember that this was the moment my mother told me she had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Throughout this time one has heard about strange diseases that have a huge affect on people. There is a mystery for this happening. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy(CTE), Huntington's Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Dementia, and Alzheimer’s have the something in common, the brain. Although one intends to think it can handle pain, but failing to not being treated or failing to rest this impact will have bad results. If one only doubts, it will not have anything happen to that particular person, that person can think again. This may not happen today or tomorrow, but it can happen to to one later on throughout that person's lifetime if it is chosen to ignore all this. Some of these diseases have not been

It took the knockout of Hall of Fame quarterback, Troy Aikman, to get the NFL to finally take concussions seriously. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis known as (ALS) is a disease that causes neurons which control voluntary muscles. Makes people weak also difficult to speak, swallow, and breathe. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy known as (CTE) is also described as brain degeneration. It is coming more common now in the word that athletes are now more likely to get CTE or ALS. People need to become aware of what might happen if changes are not changed in the world of athletics. All measures should be taken to make sports safer, in doing this rules need to changed dramatically to not cause CTE or

The effects of ALS and CTE often get people to question whether or not they should let their child play contact sports. Most of which have suffered from this play sports such as football, baseball, and hockey. ALS and CTE both can be caused by just a simple hit in the head are becoming more and more current as time goes. They don’t work the same but have similar symptoms throughout the body. Both diseases are deadly and cause a lot of damage to the body. Now CTE and ALS have been more common and have people wondering whether sports rules should change or not. Contact sports rules shouldn’t be changed for which ALS and CTE can be diagnosed to everyone not only athletes.

Why are constant blows to the head causing these fatal diseases? Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal painless disease that slowly breakdown the motor neurons in the spinal cord. ALS is absent muscle cells attacks every part of the body except the brain. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a non-curable disease that is formed by constant recurring head trauma damaging the malfunction of the body. CTE damages the brain by the buildup of abnormal proteins called Tau. Athletes are getting diagnosed with these two diseases at a very young because they are participating in contact sports so young. Contact sports have a huge impact with ALS and CTE because they are not educating the athletes about the diseases and they are not demanding a change on the safety rules. With contact sports comes with constant blows to the head that create concussions and brain injuries and they are very prone to be the main reason of why athletes are getting CTE. While the rules of the game should not be changed, the safety rules should be, the athletes should be getting educated on ALS and CTE to know the risks of the contacts sports.