Canadian authorities have approved the sale of Radicava (edaravone) to treat patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The therapy will be marketed by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Canada (MTP-CA), a unit of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America. MTP-CA was established earlier this year to distribute Radicava and other medicines for difficult-to-treat…

Personalized assessment and intervention with a specific communication strategy are key to improving communication in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Dysarthria, the term for a group of speech disorders, affects 95% of patients with ALS. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), which includes aided and unaided approaches such as communication books…

Psychological stress does not appear to play a part in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), with patients showing similar levels of prior stressful events, occupational stress, and anxiety as a control group, as well as higher resilience, a study shows. The study, “Is psychological stress…

FUS  — a protein mutated in some amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients  — plays a key role in the mechanism that repairs oxidative damage in DNA molecules in motor neurons, a study found. The findings suggest a mechanism through which FUS defects cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and add to the…

Medicines used for ovarian and breast cancer, called PARP inhibitors, might be repurposed to treat people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a study in cells suggests. This suggestion came from researchers’ work with veliparib (ABT-888), an investigational PARP inhibitor, that found it effectively reduced TDP-43 aggregates — a hallmark of…

In the Ken Burns documentary, “Baseball,” during the episode titled “Eighth Inning: A Whole New Ballgame,” comedian Billy Crystal mentions in passing the (I assume fictional) name Al Smenglevitz. Years later, I co-opted the character as a coping mechanism — an alter ego. Only, I simply refer to…

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are caused by different patterns of inflammation in the brain, which may help explain why these two illnesses are so distinct. The German study, “Different neuroinflammatory profile in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia is linked to the…

Retrotope is providing its investigational fatty acid being developed for Friedreich’s ataxia, RT001, to people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) under an expanded access program, also called “compassionate use.” Individual patients with life-threatening or severely debilitating diseases can petition the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, through their physicians,…

A new process by which pro-death signaling is sent to nerve cells may hold the key for treating neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is characterized by the loss of motor nerve cells, according to researchers. The study, “Retrograde degenerative signaling mediated by the p75…

The Wadsworth Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) can help amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients who are severely disabled to communicate while in the home, a study reports, especially those in fairly stable health. Improvements underway to this system, which relies on brain signals rather than muscles necessary for speaking or writing, are…