Lou Gehrig’s disease

Once the rules for implementing it are worked out, a bill signed into federal law in December will eliminate the required five-month waiting period for diagnosed ALS patients to begin disability benefits, enabling quicker Medicare coverage as well.

ALS Patients To Gain Quicker Access To Disability Benefits And Medicare

Michelle Andrews

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Lou Gehrig's disease can take months to diagnose, then rapidly incapacitate patients, leaving many families bankrupt before disability payments and Medicare kick in. A recent law aims to change that.

Patients with a fast-progressing form of ALS who got daily doses of an experimental two-drug combination called AMX0035 scored higher on a standard measure of function than patients who didn't get the drug.

NPR Health

Drug Combination Slows Progression Of ALS And Could Mark 'New Era' In Treatment

Jon Hamilton

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Scientists say new drugs are on the way for patients with ALS. The latest is a two-drug combo that appears to slow the progression of the fatal nerve disease with a modest but meaningful benefit.

This light micrograph from the brain of someone who died with Alzheimer's disease shows the plaques and neurofibrillary tangles that are typical of the disease. A glitch that prevents healthy cell structures from transitioning from one phase to the next might contribute to the tangles, researchers say.

NPR Health

New Clues To ALS And Alzheimer's Disease From Physics

Jon Hamilton

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Structures inside healthy brain cells nimbly move from one state to the next to perform different functions. But in certain degenerative brain diseases, scientists now think, that process gets stuck.

Health News Florida

Scott Signs 'Charlotte's Web'

Health News Florida Staff

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Gov. Rick Scott signed several drug bills into law on Monday and said he will do the same for a measure that fights human trafficking.One of the drug…

Health News Florida

Mayo Links Abnormal Protein to Lou Gehrig's, Frontotemporal Dementia

Health News Florida Staff

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Researchers with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville have found an abnormal protein that collects in the brains of patients who have Lou Gehrig’s disease or…