About twenty to thirty thousand people have ALS in the United States. Every year about five thousand more people are diagnosed with it. ALS is the most common, worldwide neuromuscular disease that affects all races. Most people get the disease anytime from age forty and sixty. While most see symptoms of the disease at this age, there are cases where younger people still become weak from the disease.
Interesting facts:In ninety five percent of ALS cases, the disease appears randomly and most patients do not have a family history of the disease. About five percent of ALS patients get the disease by inheritance. The familial form of ALS usually requires one parent to contain the disease. There are many unidentified causes of the disease that exist.