familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

felicio1796 · Newbie Joined: 20 Jul 2005 Posts: 2

My father has been diagnosed with ALS. He is 67 years old and he has been complaining on numbness in legs and arms for almost several months now but somehow never found the time for a doctor. Now he is dealing with difficult situation. We are helping as much as we can, but we know that there is no cure. Anyway, doctor mentioned that there is also familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and that it could be the form that my father has. Are we talking about hereditary risk here?

ike1757 · Newbie Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 2

Actually, we are. ALS has two major forms, one that affects 90 to 95 percent of ALS patients, without hereditary risk and familial form, affects 5 to 10 percent, and is inherited from a parent (only one parent with responsible gene is needed for emerging of this condition in offspring). Almost 20 percent of these familial ALS patients have a mutation of superoxide dismutase 1- SOD 1. That is all that is known about the genetic causes of ALS.

familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

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