ALS 101
Presented by Kathleen Smith
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Financial: Kathleen Smith received an honorarium as advisory board member and contributor to the content provided in this course from the ALS Association Alabama Chapter. There is no financial interest beyond the production of this course.
Nonfinancial: Kathleen Smith has no competing nonfinancial interests or relationships with regard to the content presented in this course.
This course will provide you with the base knowledge about ALS, including diagnostic procedures, symptoms, and management, for working with patients with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). This course will include information to assist clinicians with determining the best course of action when working with this complex neurological disease and understanding the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach to care. This course is appropriate for speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, dietitians, social workers, respiratory therapists, and nurses working with ALS patients in all settings, including home health, hospitals, and outpatient clinics.
ALS 101 is part of a series of three courses developed in partnership with MedBridge, The ALS Association Alabama Chapter, and an Advisory Board of experts who worked together to carefully develop a self-paced, evidenced-based curriculum for community-based clinicians related to bulbar dysfunction (speech and swallowing) in ALS in order to optimize patient care and clinical practice.
The purpose of this course is to give the learner a basic knowledge of ALS as well as to provide context to the overall 3-course series and emphasize the importance of the multidisciplinary care team, including the role of the SLP. Please be sure to check out the other courses in this series:
Meet your instructor
Kathleen Smith
Kathleen Smith is a speech-language pathologist with more than 25 years of experience. Kathleen graduated from Louisiana Tech University with her master's degree. Kathleen serves as the clinical coordinator for the Alabama Neurology Associates multidisciplinary ALS clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, and is a multiple sclerosis…
Chapters & learning objectives
1. What Is ALS?
This chapter will cover what ALS is as a disease. This is important to know in order to work with this population and to understand the risks and incidence of this disease.
2. Diagnosis of ALS, and Disease Progression Monitoring
This chapter will cover the differential diagnosis of ALS versus other neurological diseases, including which diseases mimic ALS and which symptoms are key symptoms to understand in the diagnosis of ALS.
3. Management of ALS
This chapter discusses how to work with the ALS population and how to assist with managing the disease from the perspective of each discipline, as well as the importance of the multidisciplinary clinic. It is important to know how to work with ALS versus other neurological diseases. This chapter explains the surgery and pharmacology options associated with ALS.
4. Role of Allied Health Professionals in Assessment and Management of ALS
This chapter defines the role of each discipline in an ALS clinic. The chapter explains how to work with this complex neurological disease and how ALS disease management is different from that of other neurological diseases.
