ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) comes from the Greek language. “A” means no “myo” meaning muscle, and “trophic” meaning nourishment, which basically says no muscle nourishment. When famous baseball player, Lou Gehrig got diagnosed with ALS, they renamed the disease after him, and in his memory. This disease is a very hard disease to diagnose. There is no special test or procedure to establish whether somebody does or doesn’t have ALS. There are 5,600 people in the U.S. who are diagnosed each year, and there are at least 30,000 Americans who have this devastating disease at anytime. Most people get diagnosed between 40 and 70 years of age, but that’s not always the case for all people. 60% of patients with ALS are men and 93% of patients are Caucasian, but this disease can strike anyone throughout the world with no racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic boundaries. When people are first getting diagnosed with ALS, there isn’t one specific test so the doctors do many different things to test what the outcomes are. The doctor will first do a complete medical history, and physical exam plus a neurological examination. Most patients will have an EMG done since that is one of the most important things in the diagnosis process. The earliest signs of ALS are most often weakness in the arms or legs. Those symptoms are usually more pronounced on one side than the other at first. The initial symptoms of ALS can vary and not all people with experience the same symptoms. Muscle weakness is a Hallmark sign in ALS, occurring in 60% of all patients. Since ALS only attacks the motor neutrons, the sense of sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell are not affected. This disease also leaves alone the thought process, the heart, and the “smooth” muscle of the digestive system, bladder, and other internal organs. The muscles that are