{"id":17396,"date":"2014-06-21T12:25:07","date_gmt":"2014-06-21T10:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/what-is-als-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis\/"},"modified":"2014-06-21T12:25:07","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T10:25:07","slug":"what-is-als-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/what-is-als-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis\/","title":{"rendered":"What is ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the occasion of June 21,<\/strong> International ALS<\/strong> Day, our specialist in neuromuscular diseases<\/strong>, the , explains what this disease is all about.<\/p>\n

What is it?<\/h4>\n

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a debilitating, progressive, debilitating, neurodegenerative disease<\/strong> that leads to death in more than 80% of cases within 5 years<\/strong> of onset.<\/p>\n

It is caused by the degeneration and death<\/strong> of motor neurons<\/strong> (the specialized cells in the brain and spinal cord that control muscles) and is manifested by aprogressive<\/strong> loss <\/strong>of<\/strong> musclestrength<\/strong> until complete paralysis.<\/p>\n

It is an adult disease, with a peak incidence in the sixth decade of life, but with avery wide<\/strong> rangeof onset<\/strong>, which can begin before the age of 25 years, until after 80 years of age. Although it is a rare disease, it affects a significant number of individuals, and it is estimated that the risk of developing ALS is one individual in every 400 individuals<\/strong>. This means that in Spain one individual is diagnosed with ALS every 8 hours (about 3 every day), and that at this moment there are about 4000 people with ALS in Spain<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Diagnosis:<\/h4>\n

It is based on the symptoms and<\/strong> neurological examination findings<\/strong>, being the
\nelectromyogram (EMG)<\/strong> is the study that provides the most relevant data. The rest of the studies are performed to exclude other diseases that could manifest with similar symptoms, and will be different depending on the initial symptoms. In a small group of cases (approximately 10%) the disease is FAMILY<\/strong> (there are other family members who have or have had the disease). In these cases there are genetic studies that can confirm the diagnosis. <\/p>\n

Throughout his professional life a general practitioner will see 0-1 patient with ALS in his practice, and a general neurologist will diagnose 1-2 cases per year. Treatment: <\/p>\n

There is no<\/strong> curative treatment for ALS<\/strong>. There is only one drug treatment that has been shown to partially prolong the survival of ALS patients <\/strong>(riluzole). The fundamental treatment is the supportive care offered by groups with great experience in the treatment of this disease (multidisciplinary units made up of various specialists with special dedication to the care of these patients) which has also been shown to result in prolonged survival and improved quality of life for patients. <\/p>\n

There are also multiple studies underway<\/strong> to evaluate new measures that may modi\ufb01cate the course of ALS, as well as research<\/strong> to achieve a better understanding of the active mechanisms that will \ufb01naly contribute to the development of new treatment strategies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the occasion of June 21, International ALS Day, our specialist in neuromuscular diseases, the , explains what this disease is all about. What is it? Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a debilitating, progressive, debilitating, neurodegenerative disease that leads to death in more than 80% of cases within 5 years of onset. It is caused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569,551],"tags":[631,617,630,669,738,941],"class_list":["post-17396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clinical-neurology","category-news-and-current-events","tag-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis","tag-clinical-neurology","tag-ela-en","tag-international-day","tag-neurologyhri","tag-sclerosis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}