His Disease Still Devastates. By Alexandra Sifferlin. Related Stories. Already a print subscriber? Go here to link your subscription. Although he remained team captain for the rest of the season, the first baseman had played his last game. The disease continued to advance at a rapid pace. Once the news went public, the Yankees announced his retirement. In July, Gehrig delivered a gut-wrenching goodbye speech at Yankee Stadium.
Later that year, Gehrig was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in a special election. Approximately 30, people living in the United States have the incurable and progressive ALS, most of them are men between the ages of 40 and 70 years. Many die within a few years of being diagnosed; others, such as the famed physicist Stephen Hawking, can live for years with their brains fully functioning even though their bodies and muscles have degenerated and wasted.
Maybe not, say a group of neurologists, physicians and pathologists at the Boston University School of Medicine Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. These doctors are presently conducting landmark research on the brains of deceased former NFL players. In other words, repetitive head trauma, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE may result in a syndrome that mimics ALS. Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology.
Lou Gehrig was called the Iron Horse not only for his incredible strength and speed, but also because he was always in the line-up, no matter what injury he incurred the day before. In , for example, during a post-game fight with the Detroit Tigers, Gehrig took a swing at Ty Cobb, missed, fell, and hit his head on concrete pavement, only to lose consciousness for a brief period of time.
It is unlikely that we will ever definitively prove whether Gehrig died of ALS or a trauma-related motor neuron disorder diagnosis. His remains were cremated and the Mayo Clinic has sealed his records. Yet his history of so many head injuries may well have played a role in his rapid decline and death. It is only over the past several years that doctors and athletes have focused on the long-term effects of brain injuries associated with contact sports.
These cells, called "motor neurons," run from the brain through the brainstem or spinal cord to muscles that control movement in the arms, legs, chest, throat and mouth. In people with ALS, these cells die off, causing the muscle tissues to waste away.
ALS does not affect a person's sensory functions or mental faculties. Other, nonmotor neurons, such as sensory neurons that bring information from sense organs to the brain, remain healthy.
Generally, ALS is categorized in one of two ways: Upper motor neuron disease affects nerves in the brain, while lower motor neuron disease affects nerves coming from the spinal cord or brainstem. In both cases, motor neurons are damaged and eventually die.
ALS is fatal. The average life expectancy after diagnosis is two to five years, but some patients may live for years or even decades. The famous physicist Stephen Hawking, for example, lived for more than 50 years after he was diagnosed. There is no known cure to stop or reverse ALS. Each person with ALS experiences a different proportion of upper and lower motor neurons that die. This results in symptoms that vary from person to person. The disease progresses, affecting more nerve cells as time goes on.
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