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While travel can present unique challenges for people with ALS, a comfortable travel experience is possible with planning and patience. This fact sheet offers tips for planning a trip while living with ALS, whether it is a local day trip or a longer excursion including air travel. These tips may be helpful for things like running errands or visiting a specialist in another city, too.

It is important for people with ALS to feel closeness and connection with their intimate partners, and to experience healthy sexuality, whether with a partner or solo. While ALS does not affect sexual functioning directly, the disease progression affects mobility, mood, strength, and breathing, so creativity and experimentation may be required to achieve satisfying sexual intimacy.

Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS) is a rare progressive neurodegenerative disease which is similar to ALS. However, ALS and PLS are not the same thing. Unlike ALS, PLS only affects the upper motor neurons. ALS affects both the upper and lower motor neurons.

ALS is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease that does not yet have a cure. When caring for you, your healthcare team will strive to maximize quality of life from the time you are diagnosed until end-of-life.

Kennedy’s Disease is a rare genetic disease with symptoms that are similar to ALS. It is also called spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy.

People living with ALS require increasing levels of care as their disease progresses. Most of the time, responsibility for personal care is taken on by caregivers such as family and friends.

Receiving an ALS diagnosis is devastating for all involved. It is normal to feel lost, frightened and unsure of what to do next or who to turn to.

In familial ALS, an inherited genetic mutation causes ALS. Many different genetic mutations have been linked to ALS, and not all families have the same mutation as the cause of their disease.

Is cannabis safe for people with ALS? Some people with ALS use cannabis to help treat their symptoms.

A feeding tube, also known as a “g-tube”, is a device that can be used to support the nutritional needs of a person living with ALS.

The bowel and bladder are not typically affected by ALS. However, some people with ALS may experience constipation, which is defined as infrequent bowel movements—usually three times a week or less.

Over time, ALS impairs the muscles involved in breathing and coughing but does not impair the lungs.

Until recently, it was believed that ALS did not affect thinking or behavior. Research in the last few years has shown that ALS can cause cognitive and behavioral changes in some people.

ALS is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis