Available Resources

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.

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.

ALS Canada helps people diagnosed with ALS to cope with the daily challenges of decreasing mobility and communication ability. Access to equipment and assistive devices is essential for the safety, comfort, independence, and functioning of a person living with ALS.

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.

Receiving a diagnosis of ALS can be overwhelming. You may experience many different emotions, and you may feel the need to learn more about how this complex disease will affect you.

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.

This resource provides information on how to deal with feelings of grief and loss following an ALS diagnosis and as the disease progresses. Grieving is a stressful process that may affect you in ways you didn’t anticipate. Gain the tools to learn how to better cope.

This manual was developed by the Health Charities Coalition of Canada to assist patients, caregivers, friends, and families in understanding and navigating the Canadian healthcare system, and the actions you can take to help you receive the best possible health care.

Toronto, ON – The in-home support that the ALS Society of Canada provides to people living with ALS is highly valued by the community it serves and is something it had to evolve after the pandemic made physical distancing a public health necessity.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, our number one priority was to support the safety of the ALS community and our staff, and as a result, we quickly pivoted to moving all ALS Canada office staff to working remotely from home and made changes to our service model to include more virtual and remote support services in place of in-person visits.