Neuro Note #3

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is an upper and lower motor neuron disease that affects almost all voluntary muscles in the body. This can include upper and lower extremities, speech, breathing, walking impairments, etc. ALS is a progressive and fatal, neurodegenerative disease that a cure has yet to be developed for but much research is being done to hopefully find a cure in the near future.

To further my learning about this disease I chose to look into the specific life of someone with ALS by watching the movie “The Theory of Everything.” This movie is about the famous physicist, Stephen Hawking, and his life before his diagnosis of ALS, his diagnosis, and his life as the disease progressed. I chose to watch this movie for a lot of reasons but the main one being how clearly it depicted not only the problems he had in his daily life but what he was still able to accomplish even though he faced many struggles. Hawking’s first symptoms of ALS began with being unable to grip a pen, tripping while walking, which eventually lead to falling and being unable to walk at all. This is something that I was able to relate back to class because I was able to see the rapid progression of the disease and how one day you may be okay and the next day could be something completely different. Additionally, I was able to see what Hawking was able to accomplish (i.e. discovering new theories) with the aid of some adaptive equipment and help from others. This was interesting to compare back to class as well because we learned about how this progressive disease does not affect an individual cognitively, which was very clear to see with this story. The fact that this disease excludes any deficits to an individual cognitively differs from most other neurodegenerative diseases. This movie was inspiring to watch and something that I definitely recommend. This movie can be found on Netflix for anyone who would like to view. A great watch!

Marsh, J. (Director). (2014). The Theory of Everything. Retrieved August 19, 2019, from    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980516/