Lou Gehrig's Disease Research Paper

Imagine laying in bed and suddenly feeling hungry but unable to get up to go to the fridge, unable to call someone to help, lift a finger, and then even if a loved one were to bring food, not having the ability to swallow the food without the assistance of someone or something. This is the life of someone with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), better known to many as Lou Gehrig's disease. Now, imagine walking into the kitchen to eat for the first time of the day, but for some reason already feeling full or walking up to the sink to wash a pile of dishes that were left the night before and seeing that nothing was there anymore. Having nothing to do but turn to a loved one who lives there to help with the confusion only to find out that this …show more content…
The early signs of CTE can very from emotional disturbances to memory loss. For example, some of the common early symptoms of someone who might have CTE are aggression, anxiety, blackouts, impulse control, and memory loss. The disease can take up to decades of the last trauma to begin affecting the victim and usually begins with the brain creating, releasing, and eventually having a buildup of toxic TAU protein that slowly damage nerve cells, kill motor neurons, and cause white matter change in the brain. All having a huge impact on the way a person and their brain learns and functions Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is an incurable disease that does not only slowly but surely kills its victims, but destroyed the lives of the people around them as well.
Many people have suffered the fate of having to hear their doctors tell them that they have just been diagnosed with one of these two diseases. ALS and CTE’s, unlike other diseases, have a much higher chance of affecting athletes. Take former NFL player Orenthal James Brigance, better known as O.J.Brigance. O.J. was played for many teams and received many awards while in the CFL and NFL and during that time more than forty athletes were diagnosed with