Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS is a degenerative nerve disease that leaves the affected people without control of any of their voluntary muscles.  The particularly sad thing about this disease is that patients retain mental function and in a sense become trapped in their own bodies.  In the United States, one of every eight hundred men and one out of every eleven hundred women die from ALS every year.  It is very important for the general public to become aware about this disease in order to have it diagnosed in its early stages.  It is very common for ALS to go unnoticed and therefore undiagnosed until its progression is too advanced for therapy.  Also, because it is so uncommon, it often gets misdiagnosed and treated incorrectly.  Awareness is very important for the general public in order to maintain good health as long as possible.  If someone is unlucky enough to show symptoms of ALS and it is caught in its earlier stages, that person should be able to maintain a better quality of life for longer.

In the United States, ALS is known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Gehrig is a famous and talented baseball player from the late twenties and thirties.  Along with Babe Ruth, he led the New York Yankees to many titles.  Unfortunately, at the top of his career he began to experience the symptoms of ALS and shortly after had to retire from the game.  Even though his career was cut short, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in December of 1939.  Shortly after, in June of 1941, he succumbed to the disease at the age of thirty-seven.