ALS is a non-contagious progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, and it slowly kills you. It is responsible for around two deaths per hundred thousand population annually.ALS stands for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and 35% of people diagnosed with ALS live five to twenty years. Small amounts of ALS patients have had their disease be reversed, but that is a very small percentage. In the later stages of ALS the disease can totally paralize you and even make you not able to talk. The early stages of ALS include increased muscle weakness, ecspecially the arms and legs, speech, swallowing and breathing.

There is no cure for a patient with ALS, but there is an FDA approved drug. The drug slows the progression of the disease, its called riluzole. The ALS Associations new program TREAT ALS stands for “Transitional Research Advancing Therapy for ALS”. It is using new drug discoveries to accelerate testing of compunds to promise the cure of the disease. ALS Association aims to move good ideas from the research arena  into patient treatment. This initiative does not currently provide new therapies and is designed as a research initiative, not a short term treatment initiative. So the whole purpose of the TREAT ALS program is to take initiative to find new treatments or combonation of drugs to cure this disease.

There needs to be more people donating money to support the research to treat patients with ALS. I think the ALS bucket challenge was a smart thing to do and we should do more donations like this to help our people in need. The bucke challenge was to donate money and also to aware people of ALS and its deadly facts. The ALS Association is doing all they can to prevent this disease from spreading and with their hard work and persistency they will cure ALS.

http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html
“What Is ALS?” – The ALS Association. Web. 17 Mar. 2015. <http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html>.

Below is a motivational video about NFL player O.J. Brigance.  I think it speaks powerfully to our EF skills of MINDSET and FLEXIBILITY.