als and the hands
One huge difference in the presentation of these two neurological diseases is that the symptoms of ALS all involve nerves that control voluntary muscle movement, whereas the nerves affected in MS affect both voluntary and involuntary muscle movement. That said, there is more to the story. “If someone has ALS affecting the fingers, this would likely affect his or her ability to play a piano or guitar,” says Bonnie Gerecke, MD, director of the Neurology Center at Mercy in Baltimore; board certified neurologist with a special interest in neuromuscular disorders, ALS and EMG. “Patients with ALS who have hand weakness often have trouble picking up objects with their hands,” says Dr. Gerecke. “When there is weakness in the thumb muscles, patients often have difficulty opposing their thumbs and other digits (grasping objects). They usually have difficulty holding objects in their hands.”. Because the list of possible symptoms is so long and varied, it is inevitable that there will be some overlap between some multiple sclerosis symptoms and many other diseases and disorders, especially neurological ones. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is no exception. However, distinct differences in the symptoms of MS and ALS become evident to health care professionals fairly quickly. To minimize measurement error and remove possible bias from knowing which images belonged to which group of people, each ring and index finger was measured four times by different researchers who did not know which hand photos belonged to people with ALS and which to the controls. However, ALS muscle twitching comes after muscle weakness, not before. So the person then starts imagining he or she has muscle weakness. — “perceived muscle weakness.”. In ALS, it’s called “clinical muscle weakness.” The strength testing can become obsessive, and unknown to those closest to the person. Twitching muscles in the fingers can have some people fearing they have ALS, that incurable fatal disease that causes muscles to waste away. People with twitching muscles who think they have ALS are prone to relentlessly performing muscle strength tests. People with ALS , the most common form of motor neurone disease , known in the US as Lou Gehrig 's Disease , are more likely to have relatively long ring fingers , according to the findings of a new study led by the Institute of Psychiatry ( IoP ) of King 's College London that was published online this week in the Journal of Neurology , ... Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a serious disease that destroys motor neurons, the cells in the brain and nervous system that control movement, leading to increasing paralysis and eventually death from respiratory failure. Average survival after diagnosis is about 2 years. However, experts are keen to point out that the findings do not suggest people with relatively long ring fingers are at higher risk for ALS, but merely add weight to the idea that some pre-birth factors may contribute to the development of the disease later in life.
Patients with ALS who have hand weakness often have trouble picking up objects with their hands.