Lou Gehrig's Disease Symptoms

Otherwise known as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig's is a genetically inherited disease that affects the muscles. The disease is progressive, meaning that it gets worse with time since the muscles get weaker and weaker from no use. Lou Gehrig's disease affects the motor neurons and the brain can no longer communicate to the muscles and thereby affects the movements of the muscles. In time, the brain cannot communicate to the muscles. A person with Lou Gehrig's disease loses the ability to move all the voluntary muscles of their body.

A person with advanced Lou Gehrig's disease has no cognitive movements. He cannot think for himself. Lou Gehrig's disease has the ability to change the personality of the individual; and turn the most talkative person into a depressed person. As the disease progresses, a person loses muscle movement and memory. He cannot recognize people or remember some things. Nevertheless, the intelligence is not affected and neither is sight or hearing affected. He needs help in managing the disease as it gets worse.

Lou Gehrig's disease is mostly diagnosed in adults who are past the midlife stage. It can be inherited, but can also be a random infection, in that nobody in the person's family has the disease. Younger people have been known to develop Lou Gehrig's disease in later years. How will you know that you are developing the disease? Is there any way of arresting the disease before it gets the better of you? Sadly, there is no treatment for the disease, and the only thing that can be done is counseling to help the person to deal with the effects of it. The symptoms are weak muscles, accompanied by frequent cramping and lethargy, there is difficulty in moving the voluntary muscles of the body. Given the general characteristics of the symptoms and the rareness of the disease, the persons are treated for other diseases rather than the Lou Gehrig's disease

There is no cure for Lou Gehrig's disease; the management of the disease involves treating of the symptoms to make sure that the sick person is living a full life as much as he can. The treatments are made to prolong the life of the sufferer, although they waste away as the disease progresses. Swallowing and breathing becomes difficult in the advanced stages of the disease since the muscles involved are voluntary muscles. It becomes harder and harder and most of them die of respiratory failure.

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