# Talk:ALS

I think it was incredibly misguided to move this article from "Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis" to "ALS". The basis of the argument seems to be that it is almost always referred to by the abbreviation and not the expanded form. This is true, but does not mean that the expanded form should be hidden. The reader needs to know what ALS stands for. On a first mention, in any article, "ALS" alone should not be used. "Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)" is the form most helpful to the reader, with ALS then used thereafter. And the article itself should clearly be at the expanded form. It's analogous to influenza, which everybody calls the flu, or multiple sclerosis, very commonly referred to as MS, with both those articles rightly being at the longer form. 94.70.247.219 (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Reasonable minds may differ. Don't forget though, that the full name is visible from the moment the reader opens the page. If other articles decide to write [[Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]], they will still be directed here, and there is no reason that any other page must use "ALS"; that decision will depend on the needs of that page. — HTGS (talk) 06:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, this is unnecessary silly to redirect "Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis" to an abbreviation. (Like redirecting "United States" to "USA"). — 2dk (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
I have to agree, it is a bit strange. Every other abbreviation has the full name as the article name, like FBI for example. It should be changed back. Binglederry (talk) 18:46, 23 September 2025 (UTC)


### Article title and subsections
My opinion: I had considered the article title before seeing this. Many, if not most readers will look for either "Lou Gehrig's disease" or "ALS" because they either won't know the actual name or, if the do, will have problems spelling it. For this reason I think ALS the better choice. Otr500 (talk)


#### Subsections
The article is a good read. It seems to me that the "Name" subsection in the "History" section, as the etymology of historical development of its name and meaning, would not be at the bottom of the article.
The second, third and fourth paragraphs of the "Differential diagnosis" subsection mainly deal with "ALS-like symptoms" or "ALS mimic syndromes" and it seems that one of them would be a better choice under its own subheading.
People reading this article, dealing with or knowing someone with an initial diagnosis of ALS, will certainly be interested in reading the various testing for the many other known diseases that mimic symptoms of ALS.
For a certainty it would seem that "Diagnosis" and its "Differential diagnosis" subsection would be better presented before the "Progression" section and subsections that includes Death.
The third paragraph of the lead should really be the last. "There is no known cure for ALS". "Survival from onset to death is two to four years". As writing goes this seems to be the end of the story. --  Otr500 (talk) 17:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I must admit that, when I added "and Canada" to the lede the other day, I didn't have proper sources. It's clear that people do call it "Lou Gehrig's Disease" there. Some of the many organizations that refer it as such (usually in some form of "also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease") are: The ALS Society of Canada, Health Canada, ALS Society of British Columbia, Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto and the University of Alberta. These proofs, though, would be classed as original research. What I haven't found yet is a source saying, "Canadians also refer to ALS as 'Lou Gehrig's Disease'". Yitz711 (talk) 15:04, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

article should probably be updated for this: there's at least two known people with ALS now who've had a neuralink implant to help improve quality of life. Binglederry (talk) 18:21, 23 September 2025 (UTC)