How Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) kills people?

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s Disease is the muscle wasting and hardening of voluntary muscles.

A person with ALS usually succumbs to carbon dioxide poisoning. This is a bi-product that we normally breath out during exhalation. A person with ALS eventually gets where the lungs and breathing is too weak to put off this product and this eventually causes respiratory failure. Use of a BiPap does help to prolong the build up of the Carbon dioxide (CO2) but eventually the lungs do shut completely down. Under some circumstances a person with ALS can succumb to choking or pneumonia. However they usually pass away from the CO2 build-up/respiratory failure.

Life is much the same for a person with ALS or a person with a spinal cord injury. They both need constant care, as they are not able to feed or groom themselves.

Here’s the video of the report from ABS-CBN:

Over the past few weeks, social media has been teeming with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The challenge was Initially kick-started as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money and awareness for neurodegenerative disease.

ALS is a mystery. It is not known what triggers this deadly disease or how to prevent or cure it.