Lou Gehrig's Disease: ALS Technologies and Personal Impact
This paper examines Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, from both a clinical and personal perspective. It explains how ALS progressively destroys motor neurons, stripping patients of voluntary muscle control while leaving cognition and sensory functions largely intact. The paper reviews key assistive technologies — including Bi-PAP ventilators, cough assist devices, the NeuRx Diaphragm Pacing System, and eye-activated communication systems — along with their costs and limitations. Drawing on personal family experience, the author also explores the emotional and financial toll these technologies can impose, ultimately reflecting on the difficult choice between prolonging life with machines and allowing the disease to run its natural course.
- What Is Lou Gehrig's Disease?: ALS defined: motor neuron degeneration and muscle loss
- Effects on the Mind and Who Is Affected: Cognition preserved; demographics and prevalence of ALS
- Machines and ALS: A Personal Reflection: Two contrasting family experiences with ALS and technology
- Assistive Technologies for ALS Patients: Bi-PAP, cough assist, and diaphragm pacing devices explained
- Costs and Limitations of ALS Devices: Device costs, insurance coverage, and efficacy concerns
- Conclusion: Technology and the Choice to Accept ALS: Author argues for accepting ALS over machine-prolonged life
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What makes this paper effective
- Blends clinical research with first-person testimony, giving abstract medical facts an emotional grounding that helps readers understand the real human stakes of ALS.
- Organizes information logically — moving from disease definition, to neurological mechanisms, to specific technologies, to cost analysis — so the argument builds progressively.
- Uses concrete cost figures and named devices (Bi-PAP, NeuRx DPS, DynaVox) to make the discussion of assistive technology specific and credible rather than generic.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective integration of personal narrative within an informational academic framework. Rather than letting the personal anecdote overwhelm the factual content, the author uses it as a comparative case study — contrasting two ALS patients who made different technology choices — and then draws a clearly stated thesis from that comparison. This technique shows how experiential evidence can support, rather than replace, source-based argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a definition of ALS drawn from NINDS, explains the neurological mechanisms involved, and addresses the disease's cognitive effects and demographic profile. It then shifts to a personal reflection that introduces two contrasting cases — the author's father, who declined technological intervention, and a family friend who pursued it. A dedicated section follows that catalogs specific assistive devices with technical descriptions and cost data. The paper concludes with a stated position favoring acceptance over prolonged machine-assisted life.
What Is Lou Gehrig's Disease?
Lou Gehrig's disease — also known by its medical name, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) — is a "rapidly progressive, invariably fatal neurological disease" that attacks an individual's nerve cells (neurons), particularly those that control voluntary muscles, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The ALS sufferer experiences this disease gradually, as the motor neurons degenerate slowly and take away the patient's ability to move muscles as he or she once did.
The motor neurons are the nerve cells in the brain, spinal cord, and brainstem. As NINDS describes them, they are the "vital communication links between the nervous system and the voluntary muscles of the body." Voluntary muscles are those that a person consciously controls. The heart, by contrast, is an involuntary muscle — it does not require messages from the brain to keep beating. Muscles are "bundles of elongated cells" that allow a human's thoughts to be turned into action (NRPT). A baseball pitcher winds up and throws the ball because his motor neurons communicate to his muscles that the pitch is ready to be thrown. If a person wants to speak loudly, his or her larynx, mouth, and tongue must all go into action, and breathing must be controlled so that air can move "through the larynx in the first place" (NRPT).
When ALS strikes, that communication between the nervous system and the voluntary muscles is interrupted. Both the "upper motor neurons and the lower motor neurons degenerate or die, ceasing to send messages to muscles," NINDS explains. Essentially, the brain loses the ability to initiate any voluntary movement of the muscles.
Other disabilities are associated with ALS as well. In time, a patient loses most or all arm, leg, and body function, placing the person in a profoundly serious situation. When the muscles of the diaphragm and chest no longer respond to messages from the motor neurons, patients must be placed on a ventilation system just to stay alive (NINDS). "Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure," the NINDS fact sheet notes, typically within three to five years of diagnosis, although a small number of ALS patients live up to ten years.
Effects on the Mind and Who Is Affected
ALS does not negatively affect a person's mind or intelligence, although some patients do become depressed — for reasons related to their circumstances rather than to any neurological attack on cognition (NINDS). The ability to see, taste, hear, smell, and recognize touch is not affected. In most cases, ALS patients also retain control of their eye muscles and their bowel and bladder functions (NINDS).
Approximately 25,000 to 30,000 Americans have ALS at any given time, and roughly 5,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. All ethnic backgrounds and races can be affected, though age is a significant factor — individuals between 40 and 50 years of age are most likely to be diagnosed. Men are diagnosed with ALS more often than women.
Works Cited
ALS Association (ALSA). (2008). Respiratory Care. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://web.alsa.org.
DynaVox Technologies. (2011). DynaVox EyeMax Accessory for DynaVox Vmax. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://www.spectronicsinoz.com.
Focus on ALS. (2009). BiPAP. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from
Madsen, Amy. (2011). NeuRx Diaphragm Pacing System Approved for ALS. MDA/ALS Newsmagazine. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://alsn.mda.org.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. (2009). Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/amyotrophiclateralsclerosis/detail_ALS.htm.
National Register of Personal Trainers (NRPT). (2010). Expand Your Knowledge / Muscle Anatomy / Voluntary Muscles. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://www.nrpt.co.uk.
Pfiumm, Michelle. (2011). DPS Sleep. ALSTDI (ALS Therapy Development Institute). Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://blogs.als.net/post/2011/12/06/DPS-sleep.aspx.
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