Symptoms of ALS can include difficulty with daily activities like walking, increased clumsiness, muscle weakness in the feet, hands, legs and ankles, cramping and twitching, issues with posture and holding the head up, emotional changes and cognitive issues, speech problems, pain, fatigue, saliva and mucus problems, and breathing and swallowing difficulties in later stages. Symptoms progress over time and affect all body parts. Diagnosis involves ruling out other potential causes through tests like EMGs, MRIs, blood and spinal fluid tests and biopsies looking for signs of upper and lower motor neuron involvement characteristic of ALS.
Symptoms of ALS can include difficulty with daily activities like walking, increased clumsiness, muscle weakness in the feet, hands, legs and ankles, cramping and twitching, issues with posture and holding the head up, emotional changes and cognitive issues, speech problems, pain, fatigue, saliva and mucus problems, and breathing and swallowing difficulties in later stages. Symptoms progress over time and affect all body parts. Diagnosis involves ruling out other potential causes through tests like EMGs, MRIs, blood and spinal fluid tests and biopsies looking for signs of upper and lower motor neuron involvement characteristic of ALS.
Symptoms of ALS can include difficulty with daily activities like walking, increased clumsiness, muscle weakness in the feet, hands, legs and ankles, cramping and twitching, issues with posture and holding the head up, emotional changes and cognitive issues, speech problems, pain, fatigue, saliva and mucus problems, and breathing and swallowing difficulties in later stages. Symptoms progress over time and affect all body parts. Diagnosis involves ruling out other potential causes through tests like EMGs, MRIs, blood and spinal fluid tests and biopsies looking for signs of upper and lower motor neuron involvement characteristic of ALS.
Symptoms of ALS can include difficulty with daily activities like walking, increased clumsiness, muscle weakness in the feet, hands, legs and ankles, cramping and twitching, issues with posture and holding the head up, emotional changes and cognitive issues, speech problems, pain, fatigue, saliva and mucus problems, and breathing and swallowing difficulties in later stages. Symptoms progress over time and affect all body parts. Diagnosis involves ruling out other potential causes through tests like EMGs, MRIs, blood and spinal fluid tests and biopsies looking for signs of upper and lower motor neuron involvement characteristic of ALS.
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Symptoms of ALS
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The symptoms of ALS develop at different rates for different people. In the early stages of ALS, signs and symptoms can be so slight that they may be overlooked, at least until they develop into more obvious weaknesses or visible atrophy. Common symptoms of ALS include:
Difficulty in carrying out daily activities, including walking
Increased clumsiness
Weakness in the feet, hands, legs and ankles
Cramping and twitching in the arms, shoulders or tongue
Difficulty in maintaining good posture and holding the head up
Uncontrolled outbursts of laughing or crying (emotional lability), and cognitive
changes
Slurring of speech and difficulty with voice projection
Pain
Fatigue
Saliva and mucus problems
Difficulties with breathing and swallowing (in advanced cases).
ALS can make the leg muscles weaken, meaning that simple actions such as walking can become difficult.
Progressive muscle weakness occurs in all cases of ALS, although muscle
weakness may not be the first indication of the condition. Early symptoms often include clumsiness, abnormal limb fatigue, muscle cramps and twitches (fasciculations) and slurred speech. Symptoms will spread to all parts of the body as ALS progresses. Some people with ALS can also experience symptoms of impaired decision-making and memory, eventually leading to a form of dementia called frontotemporal dementia. Emotional lability is also a symptom of ALS in some people - this is known as the pseudo-bulbar effect and can cause people to have more extreme fluctuations in mood and emotional response.
Diagnosis of ALS
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There is no single test used to diagnose ALS. Instead, a health care provider will make a diagnosis based on the patient's symptoms and results of tests used to rule out other conditions that can cause similar symptoms.
MRI scans can be used to locate problems such as herniated disks that cause symptoms similar to ALS.
Two types of test that may be used to diagnose ALS are
called electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction study (NCS). These tests can detect electrical energy in muscles and the ability of nerves to send signals respectively. EMG and NCS can be used to support ALS diagnosis and to rule out peripheral neuropathy (peripheral nerve damage) and myopathy (muscle disease).
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) does not reveal evidence of ALS, but can be used to show other problems that could be causing the patient's symptoms. These problems include spinal cord tumors and herniated disks in the neck. Doctors can also request that blood and urine tests are carried out, as well as tests on spinal fluid samples extracted through a lumbar puncture. A muscle biopsy may also be carried out in order to rule out myopathy. As well as the conditions mentioned above, the following medical problems can also produce similar symptoms to ALS, and thus may need to be ruled out during the diagnostic process:
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
Lyme disease
Multiple sclerosis Polio
West Nile virus.
The presence of both upper and lower motor neuron symptoms is believed to be a strong indicator of ALS. Upper motor neuron symptoms include stiffness and resistance to movement in the muscles, and brisk reflexes. Lower motor neuron symptoms include weakness, muscle atrophy and twitching. 10
Recent developments on ALS diagnosis from MNT news
Clinician's 'primer' to genome and exome sequencing published Experts warn that physicians do not know enough about genetics to understand the strengths and weaknesses of such tools. But clinicians have already ordered several thousand tests - particularly to help with cases of rare childhood diseases - suggesting that, ready or not, the technology has already entered the realm of general medical practice.
