Our grant program provides direct support intended to make life a little bit easier for patients and their families. It is a financial grant that can be used for respite care, home health services, and/or accessible transportation.
Our grant program provides direct support intended to make life a little bit easier for patients and their families. It is a financial grant that can be used for respite care, home health services, and/or accessible transportation.
Our grant program provides direct support intended to make life a little bit easier for patients and their families. It is a financial grant that can be used for respite care, home health services, and/or accessible transportation.
Our grant program provides direct support intended to make life a little bit easier for patients and their families. It is a financial grant that can be used for respite care, home health services, and/or accessible transportation.
There is a lot to do, and this grounded focus of making ALS livable helps us hold everyone—ourselves, the FDA, and the research community—accountable to real impacts on real people with ALS and the time it takes to deliver those impacts. This week has been a big step forward for the ALS community, and we will continue urgently working to keep the momentum going.
Most of the time ALS is not inherited. In about 90% of cases, the person is the only member of the family with the disease. These cases are called “sporadic ALS”. The cause of sporadic ALS is not well understood, but may be due to a combination of environmental and genetic risk factors.
In 2016, my colleagues and I published some remarkable results of a new drug called CuATSM in a mouse model of ALS. Moving CuATSM from mice to humans is a long and difficult road that involves the cooperation and scrutiny of many people. The checks and balances are critical to balance the risks with the benefits of any new therapy.
There are many ways, both big and small, to raise ALS awareness. Some people have used their filmmaking or public speaking talents to craft compelling stories of those living with this disease. From TED talks to award-winning documentaries, these videos inspire, educate, challenge and entertain viewers, while celebrating the lives of people with ALS and the contributions they have made.
As my dad's health declines it's gotten a lot harder to "keep on keepin' on." I've decided to share my perspective so that maybe other people can know they are not alone in their battles.
Dr. Lauren Gittings, whose award was made possible directly through funds provided by The ALS Association Oregon and SW Washington Chapter, is a postdoctoral fellow from the Sattler Lab at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. We recently spoke with Lauren to learn more about her and her unique project focused on identifying cellular and molecular changes that underlie cognitive impairment in ALS patients carrying the C9orf72 (C9) repeat expansion mutation.