Talk:Motor neurone disease

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[[ALS final stage]] My father was diagnosed as ALS/MND somewhere June 2004 (the symptoms started around mid of 2003). Currently, he needs respiratory system (with breathing machine) to support his life. For the past 1 and the half year, he was rescued with "resuscitation" at least 2 times. There is no cure so far, we had tried. Those who suffer the same, please accept the fact, tell the patient to accept. Those Scientist who eventually found solutions will be very much appreciated. Millionaire and billionaire, please donate for research generously. For mankind, thank you. LKS 20/1/2007

1 Stem cells, beijing, dr. huang
2 First and Second, or Upper and Lower
3 Does this article need moving?
4 MMA
5 Link suggestions
6 CSF protein patterns
7 Definition
8 Henry A. Wallace?
9 Is this article abount MND or ALS
10 Page moves
11 Category:Deaths from motor neurone disease

[edit] Stem cells, beijing, dr. huang

In response to both sides of the stem cell debate my own feeling is that Dr. Huang's "treatment" does nothing. This is on the basis of having seen several patients in our clinic who have been there and continued to deteriorate, or in some cases have serious adverse events, as well as a multitude of reports on both Braintalk and www.build-uk.net. Dr. Huang has received a lot of media attention recently in the US and UK so I anticipate that section will be added to over the coming weeks by new posters. It is also worth bearing in mind given the profit to be made from each patient ($20,000), that there is potentially an advertising element to positive spin on stem cell clinics. --PaulWicks 09:28, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First and Second, or Upper and Lower

How often (and whereabouts) are they called first and second motor neurons? Isn't upper and lower MNs much more common. I hate to quote the google test... so i won't. -T 05:56, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The international support organization uses the abbreviation ALS/MND to refer to the disease.

To which disease? The first paragraph taught us that MND refers to a whole group of diseases, of which ALS is only one member (even though Americans use the term "ALS" for the whole group). So what exactly is ALS/MND? The whole group or just one member? Also, does "Lou Gehrig's disease" refer to the whole group or just to the specific member? AxelBoldt 15:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is appears that in the US, ALS is used to cover all of the conditions that are elsewhere known as MND and that a number of conditions can be characterrised as MND. What specific variety of MND Lou Gerhig had I have no idea, but I would guess it is likely to be ALS given that ALS is the more common name for the conditions in the US. See http://www.alsmndalliance.org/whatis.html. Mintguy (T) 16:52, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This article should be upgraded with a more natural language. This is a dictionary for everyone not purely a reference for specialists and medical scientists. I have a fealing that many of the strange scientific words could be replaced using dayily language words. If no such word exist one could give a short explanation in the text on most of theese words (preferrably not just in separate articles).

As it stands the article is written in quite scientific terms. Does anyone have any suggestions for how we might write parallel articles in scientific and lay language??? --PaulWicks 14:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Does this article need moving?

Everywhere in the article, the condition is referred to as "Motor Neurone Disease" (note caps) and yet the title doesn't feature such capitalization. The other one is currently a redirect, but is that the right way around? - Vague | Rant 12:42, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Done. --PaulWicks 14:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Then subsequently undone, because as pointed out, disease names are onl capitalised if eponymous. First I'd heard of it because that's how I've always written it in the UK including on official documentation. Is decapitalising disease names an american convention? The article is written about MND (rather than ALS) and "neurone" has been spelt in the English way rather than the American "neuron". Any thoughts?

--PaulWicks 07:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I have an entirely different issue. If you search for "lou gehrig," you get various hits, the link "lou gehrigs disease" redirects you to the Motor Neurone Disease page, while the link "lou gehrig's disease" brings you to the ALS page, which is more accurate. At the least, they should both redirect to the same page. As i'm new to wikipedia, I do not know how to make this correction. Thanks.

Well spotted and good point. Done. --PaulWicks 21:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MMA

> MMA removed as not strictly speaking an MND.

How/Why is MMA "not strictly speaking an MND"?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11551236&query_hl=1:

> Monomelic amyotrophy (MMA) a variant of motor neuron disease

AHands 05:48, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Because it is not progressive to other regions, does not fall under the criteria of El Escorical Diagnostic criteria for ALS/MND, and is not recognised as such. That it is A disease which affects the Motor Neurones I agree, but that doesn't make it MND. PaulWicks 15:07, September 1st

[edit] Link suggestions

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Motor_neurone_disease article, and they have been placed on this page for your convenience.
Tip: Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just add {{User:LinkBot/suggestions/Motor_neurone_disease}} to this page. — LinkBot 10:32, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] CSF protein patterns

I removed the newly added section reflecting this abstract. While it sounds fascinating, I am a bit weary of radical new concepts being introduced on Wikipedia as if they could be the next breakthrough. Only very rarely is this warranted (e.g. when a promising agent makes it to a phase III trial). It may be lightyears before this test is introduced in clinical practice, and it runs the perpetual risk of dying an early death, as have so many other diagnostic tricks of the past. JFW | T@lk 00:44, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Good call. I've put a little bit on there to warn that MND patients are particularly vulnerable to snake oil salesmen, the results of which I have seen many times. --PaulWicks 14:49, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

[edit] Henry A. Wallace?

Did not, former US Vice President Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965) die of this disease? Mightberight/wrong 0:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Is this article abount MND or ALS

There may be a British/American terminology issue here, but, whatever the cause, the structure of the article is more than a little confused as a result. Why not have separate articles for the individual diseases? --Sjsilverman 23:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK there is no strict definition for each of the various diseases, for instance no-one is quite clear on what varierty of the disease Stephen Hawking suffers from. Jooler 12:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi all, I'll try and clear this one up. The terminology is confused everywhere. Therefore the confusion here is reflective of that. I don't think splitting the article would be of any benefit, but I agree there might be more attempts made at consistency. I will have a go and then you can all play with it.

UK: MND = a group of diseases including ALS, PLS, PMA, and PBP. But it also equals ALS, the most common form of the disease. USA: ALS = a group of diseases including ALS, PLS, PMA, and PBP.

    Lou Gehrig's Disease = as above

Stephen Hawking says in his introduction to "A Brief History of Time" that he has ALS. If he was being non-specific about his dx, as he is British, he would have said he has MND. Therefore he has ALS, albeit the most slowly progressive occurrence known. There is a seperate article on PLS and I'll start one on PMA. Cheers --PaulWicks 21:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

From http://wiki.iop.kcl.ac.uk/default.aspx/Neurodegeneration/Classification%20of%20Motor%20Neurone%20Diseases.html - Increasingly, it is recognised that there is not a clear distinction between PMA, ALS, PLS, and ALS-FTD. ... a number of authors in the neuropathology literature have suggested that MND is best considered as a multisystem disorder with a number of phenotypes expressing differential involvement of motor and CNS systems -- MND cannot be subdivided into pure and distinct categories as identified by clinical signs and symptoms. Jooler 19:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

ROFLMAO, ah the power of google. If you look carefully you'll find I actually wrote that!--PaulWicks 22:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page moves

User:Velho cut and paste moved this page to Motor neuron disease. This was then reverted and "corrected" by a standard move by User:Jfdwolff. Neither of these page moves has been announced or suggested or discussed on the talk page and were made without any consensus. I have just moved the page back to Motor neurone disease. I also note that in the logs of this page is the following "09:36, 20 December 2005 Jfdwolff (Talk | contribs) moved Motor neurone disease to Motor neuron disease over redirect (more common and correct spelling) (revert)". In the US the term ALS is more common and MND tends to be used outside of the US, particularly Britain and Australia. The ALS/MND Alliance], the MND Association, the MND Association of Australia and a host of other organisations use the spelling Neurone. Jooler 10:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

ALS is *not* equivalent to MND. It's a form of MND, probably the most (in)famous one. (Anyways, Wikipedia has separate articles, this being a kind of "umbrella"). But, as far as spelling is concerned, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, draft revision September 2003, "By the late 20th cent. the form neuron was the commoner of the two, and had become standard in scientific usage." JackLumber. 14:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I did not say they were equivalent. I know they are not equivalent. I said "In the US the term ALS is more common and MND tends to be used outside of the US, particularly Britain and Australia." - Jooler 15:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm a Brit so I wrote "neurone" in my thesis, "neurone" in my articles to JNNP, but have to change to "neuron" to submit to Neurology. In my view the americans spell it "neuron", there's more of them than there are of us so for our purposes I'd just say sod it (pardon the pun), and make it "neuron". So long as the pages redirect OK I'm sure 99% of readers won't notice or care. --PaulWicks 14:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The "sod it" attitude is not one that is universally shared. Jooler 15:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm very new here and am as close to being without a nationality as can be (having grown up all over), but I thought I'd point out that making this article 'neuron' does seem to make sense. 'Neuron' is accepted in the UK, esp in the academic community, so we'd be choosing a spelling that's accepted in the UK and the US. Moreover, most other articles with 'neuron(e)' in their titles are 'neuron'. /--Borgipedia 16:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

This page started life at Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (American usage) and was moved to the more all encompasing term Motor Neurone Disease with this edit [1] in 2003. Generally spellings are not changed wthout good reason. See WP:MoS#National varieties of English. This page has been established with this spelling for three years. Jooler 17:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hm..... If the original page was in American English the title of the new page should have been in American English as well. Seems like a mistake was made. Shouldn't that be corrected? Seems esp so given that 'neuron' is accepted everywhere, but 'neurone' is not. /--Borgipedia 18:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry? Where was a mistake made? The original page was at ALS if anything that was the mistake. ALS which is a a type of MND, but in the US ALS is usually used to refer to all types of MND and as I understand MND is rarely refered to in the US. The edit that created a page on MND used neurone because the editor chose to do so, conciously or unconciously choosing the BE spelling. Someone later created a page specifically about ALS. Jooler 21:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Yup, because whoever made a page about Motor Neurone Disease would be English, because an American wouldn't call it that, they'd call it ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. "Sod it" was a joke. Neurone is the "correct" British spelling but so many people say and write "Neuron" without criticism that it is more the norm. My favourite bit of the guidelines on this state: "Finally, in the event of conflicts on this issue, please remember that if the use of your preferred version of English seems like a matter of great national pride to you, the differences are actually relatively minor when you consider the many users who are not native English speakers at all and yet make significant contributions to the English-language Wikipedia, or how small the differences between national varieties are compared with other languages. There are many more productive and enjoyable ways to participate than worrying and fighting about which version of English to use on any particular page."--PaulWicks 21:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, but shouldn't we use the spelling that's acceptable in both varieties of English, instead of the one acceptable only in one variety? /--Borgipedia 09:47, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Look. User:Velho did a cut and paste move against MoS guidelines on National varieties of English and WP policy on cut n' paste moves. User:Jfdwolff then "corrected" the cut n'paste it by implementing a full move, that was still against MoS guidelines about page moves and varieties of English. I moved the page back and then as a common courtesy I explained why on this talk page. If you want to move the page then please use the normal procedures of requesting a page move by consensus. If it doesn't concern you too much then let's leave it as it is and get on with other things. Jooler 11:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Way to go, Dr. Wicks. Yes, apparently Brits make more use of Motor Neuron(e) Disease than Americans (although the name sure is not unknown in the U.S.). This, combined with Motor Neurone Disease being the original title, suggests that the current state of affairs be retained. Sidebar: Note that WP policies & guidelines about spelling have been often ignored or overridden—for example, the yoghurt article violates both the "original editor" rule and the "more internationally used spelling" rule. IMO, conducting polls to settle issues like this (usual WP practice) is just contradictory—there are rules, let's just apply them damn rules. (Not to mention that usually 60 to 90 percent of voters are biased.) I believe a committee should be appointed to enforce said rules. If anything, a lot of BS would disappear from talk pages---check out Talk:Theatre/Spelling. 100 K worth of BS. Theatre is the appropriate title—used worldwide, U.S. included. Period. Aluminium is the international standard, and so is sulfur. Yada yada yada. As simple as that... JackLumber. 12:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

comment - Jack Lumber has openly admitted that he follows me around to counter my "anti-American English systematic bias" - he means "systemic". See [[2]]. Jooler 07:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that he does indeed mean "systematic." But you may well believe he should mean "systemic." Myself, I think he means what he says, and may well be correct! --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-22 11:26 (UTC)

This might seem like a silly criterion, but "neuron" is a term from ancient greek, and doesn't have an "e" on the end. At least etymologically, "neuron" seems to make more sense. SB Johnny 12:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. /--Borgipedia 10:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

In this context the word came into the English language via the Belgian Arthur Van Gehuchten. His French spelling was adopted into English. Jooler 03:44, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

But it wasn't widely adopted. Most, or at least many, British scientists don't use that spelling, and no American scientists do. So going back to the Greek is probably the best solution, since it involves the most gentle compromise. --Borgipedia 20:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)