For many people living with ALS, the decision to have a feeding tube placed, if or when it’s needed, is an important one, and as with many decisions that must be made during an ALS journey, it’s not of the one-size-fits-all variety. In recognition of Feeding Tube Awareness Week, we wanted to share some common concerns and misconceptions about them as well as some resources to help.
ALS Association leaders and advocates from the ALS community will press lawmakers in Maryland to pass legislation that would prevent insurance companies from using genetic testing information to deny coverage or influence price considerations.
When Anjo Snijders was diagnosed with ALS in 2017 at the age of 35, he and his wife Sascha realized the vision of their future with their two young children in the Netherlands was forever changed. For both Anjo and Sascha, honesty with their children, age just seven and two at the time, was of great importance. Both teachers by trade, they began to look for resources to help explain their daddy’s illness, but found little if anything. And with that, the story of Luki and the Lights was born.
The ALS Association is launching an ambitious slate of federal and state policy priorities for 2023. The priorities build upon the successes achieved and focus on augmenting our work to accelerate the search for new treatments and cures, optimize care for people living with ALS today, prevent ALS, and empower everyone with ALS and their families to live life on their own terms.
Jaci Haakonson has been a caregiver to her husband Ted for ten years now. They were "lucky" in many ways early in Ted's diagnosis, but living with ALS shouldn't be dependent upon luck.
The ALS Association has awarded nearly $800,000 to support 16 innovative research projects that have the potential to significantly impact the experience of ALS by optimizing current care and treatments, finding new treatments and cures, and aiding with diagnosis and prevention.
ALS doesn’t care where a person lives, and a person with ALS in Florence, Italy is as much in need of reliable care and resources as someone in Florence, South Carolina. At the International Alliance of ALS/MND Association meeting in late 2022, proud “Mapper” members Amanda Stanko, senior solution engineer at Esri, and Pat (who joined remotely) shared how they are taking their clinic mapping tool internationally to provide the resource for people with ALS around the world.
Looking back on the beginning of 2022, I would have never anticipated telling my family’s story to so many with the help of The ALS Association. I was working two jobs as a nurse, transitioning to another clinical position, all while trying to support my husband Lamar (diagnosed with ALS in 2018) with his goals toward completing his college degree, and maintaining the busyness of motherhood, raising our 8-year-old daughter.