Future OT Megan

For this NeuroNote I decided to learn more about ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It is also commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I knew a little about this disease from when the ALS ice bucket challenge circled the world in 2014, but I really wanted to learn more about it and how it affects not only the person with this diagnosis, but also their families. I decided to watch “Alex’s ALS Journey”. Before I watched the video, I wanted to look up some more facts about ALS and went to the ALS Association website to learn more. ALS is a progressive neurogenerative disease that affects the nerve cells of the Central Nervous System, the brain and spinal cord. Because motor neurons travel from the brain all the way to muscles in your body, ALS eventually causes the inability to control muscle movement. Many people with this diagnosis will lose the ability to talk, eat, move, walk and breathe. There are actually two types of ALS. The first is sporadic ALS which is the most common ...

For this Neuro note I decided to dive deeper into Guillain-Barré Syndrome. I chose this topic because I am not very familiar with it and really wanted to gain further knowledge into GBS. Before watching the Youtube video, Andrew's Story: Guillain-Barré Syndrome, I did further research into what exactly GBS is. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, GBS is an extremely rare neurological disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. GBS can range from mild, to very severe cases like Andrew's story. The good news is that most people, even with the most severe cases, will make a full recovery. Researchers do not know what exactly causes GBS and why the body's immune system starts to mistakenly attack its own body, but it is thought that it may start from the immune system trying to attack an infection. Andrew Franek had just started his new career as a firefighter when he got really sick with...