ALS AWARENESS MONTH

            Well, here we are at the month of May which turns out to be ALS Awareness Month. If you’ve followed my website at all (peterjennings.me) you’ll be aware that I do think it’s reasonable for those of us with any kind of web presence to show support for a cause. I have chosen to provide awareness for finding a cure for ALS as my contribution to life.
            I’ve come to know a lot about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. It’s also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, named after a well-known baseball player in the 1930s who contracted ALS and had to retire from baseball because of it. It’s also the condition that famed theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking suffered from.
            So, what is ALS? Simply put, it’s a disease that affects the nerve cells that make muscles work in the body. For someone with ALS, they find that the nerves lose the ability to trigger specific muscles, which causes the muscles to become weak and often leads to paralysis.
            Why support research into finding a cure for ALS when it’s such a rare disease (only .0007% of the population contract the condition and no two cases are ever exactly the same)? No one knows for sure what causes ALS and there is no cure (most theories center on a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors). I guess that’s the answer right there: tireless research is being carried out by professionals, and while there are currently no treatments to stop the progression of ALS, there are three drugs available that provide some benefits to people living with ALS. At ALSTDI in the U.S., the most comprehensive drug discovery lab dedicated to ALS research, they say, “ALS is not an incurable disease. It is an underfunded one. We are dedicated to discovering and developing effective treatments to end amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. We will not stop until there are treatments for every single person living with ALS.”
            And listen to Dr. Lorne Zinman, Director of the ALS and Neuromuscular Clinic at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto:
            “Unfortunately, many people still have not heard of ALS – it doesn’t have the same level of awareness as other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. ALS isn’t top of mind and it’s generally not the first thing someone would think about when they have trouble opening a water bottle for example. Also, ALS is thankfully rare and most primary care physicians will only see one to two cases throughout their careers. Increasing ALS awareness can help patients and family physicians recognize symptoms earlier in the course of the disease. This will ensure that the necessary tests and referral to a neurologist are expedited to shorten the time from symptom onset to diagnosis.”
            OK, you get the picture. And since this is ALS Awareness Month, why don’t we all make a donation. I support both the Canadian and U.S. teams, but you can make your own choice as follows:
 
For Canada, click here

For the U.S., click here

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