Just now, one of today's most famous theoretical physicists and author of A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking, passed away on March 14, according to The Guardian and the BBC.

Hawking's other identity is probably the world's most famous patient with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Hawking entered the University of Oxford in 1959 and began a postgraduate program at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1962. in 1963, at the age of 21, Hawking was diagnosed with ALS, and doctors said he had only two years to live. The genius of his brain was also fortunate enough that his disease progressed more slowly than the average patient. He started out using crutches, only to switch to a wheelchair a few years later. Later, iconic movements, a wheelchair hooked up to high-tech attachments, and an electronic synthesizer emitting slow readings became his symbols. Hawking used to talk about death.

I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first

For the past 49 years, I have lived in anticipation of a premature death. I don't fear death, but I am in no hurry to do so. There are still too many things I want to do first.

Until today.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, what is it?

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as "tardive dyskinesia", is a neurological disorder in which damage to the upper and lower motor neurons results in progressive and worsening muscle weakness, muscle atrophy, difficulty swallowing, choking on water, and slurred speech, accompanied by muscle throbbing, and examination of the body reveals increased tendon reflexes (including the knee reflexes, etc.), among other symptoms.

I first learned about ALS when I was still in school, because my mentor was working on a national textbook, and I was asked to help draft a section on "motor neuron disease," which is one of the diseases in this category.

At that time, there was not a lot of knowledge about this disease in China, and I had to go through a lot of information to write it. But just when I was writing the textbook text, I actually had no in-depth knowledge of this disease. It was not until I became a doctor later and saw several such patients in the clinic that I personally felt the 'heaviness' of the whole disease.

Extremely rare disease

ALS is a rare disease that affects about 4 to 6 out of every 100,000 people. The neurons that innervate muscle movement slowly degenerate for reasons unknown to humans, and as these motor neurons slowly die off, the muscle slowly loses its ability to move and atrophies little by little until it dies.

The vast majority of people with ALS develop it in adulthood, an acquired disease that means a person slowly loses the ability to move and care for themselves.

At first, it may just be unintentionally noticed that the fingers are not so flexible, then there is no way to hold a teacup with one hand, it won't be long before there is no way to comb the hair, and that dashing movement of crossing the hands behind the head, which is extremely easy for a normal person, fades away and can no longer be accomplished ......

Every neurological specialist knows that soon after various movement disorders in the upper extremities appear, the lower extremities are inevitably affected as well. The distance from being able to cycle around Qinghai Lake to having difficulty going up two flights of stairs is perhaps just a matter of a dozen months.

When the muscle atrophy reaches the muscles responsible for speech, ALS patients will slowly lose the ability to speak, and eventually can only express themselves with the help of an eye-tracker, and when the muscles responsible for eating and breathing are affected, it means that death is very close. During this period of time, the feeling of not being able to take in a full breath of oxygen is always with the patient, and the feeling is like the "ghost pressure" in nightmares and the feeling of suffocation underwater.

Extremely painful disease

For the ALS patient, the most painful part is not the inability to exercise and eventual death, but the fact that he maintains a clear brain and good skin sensation throughout the course of the disease.

You touch his body, he can sense it, but can't give you a response; you talk to him, he can hear clearly, but can't make the right expression. His conscious brain watched the muscles disappear little by little, and even before the muscles and the innervating neurons lose contact there will be a visible beating, that is actually the last struggle of the muscles.

I want to die early. Can you give me a hand?

Two ALS patients once told me this, such a scene is not the plot of a movie, but a real occurrence, at that time they could not even complete suicide, when you see their pain, even if you are a professional doctor who has witnessed countless deaths, it is very difficult to calm down.

A grown, healthy person who could have sat, laid down, run and jumped, hugged and kissed, had sex, breathed heavily and shouted from the top of a mountain, but after a few years all of this can only be recalled in memories and the reality of seeing your rapidly withering life.

The 'Ice Bucket Challenge' of those years

Around 2014, a cancer society in New Zealand launched a campaign called the 'Ice Bucket Challenge', a fundraising campaign on social networks to draw attention to ALS.

Participants in the 'Ice Bucket Challenge' are required to pour ice and water from a bucket over their heads and make a video of the whole process, which is uploaded to social networks.

While participants complete the challenge, up to three additional people can be named to follow suit; those named will have 24 hours to either accept the Challenge or choose to donate $100 to a charity, or both.

That year, the impact of the campaign was so great that in the United States alone, 1.7 million people took part in the challenge, 2.5 million people donated, and the total amount of donations was rumored to be more than $115 million.

All of the people who livened up the summer Ice Bucket Challenge actually deserve thanks for more or less priming the community to understand and recognize ALS; the coolness of the ice water, the social frenzy, the marketing bonanza, and to each their own, is not such a bad thing.

What we really need to understand is that this disease is such a heavy topic that it can be spread by a light-hearted "Ice Bucket Challenge", but we can't change the fact that it is indeed a disease that can neither be prevented nor cured, and that ALS is a darkness that mankind is still unable to light up.

When you think of ALS as a disease, I hope to really feel the 'weight' of it, and I hope to make more people willing to learn about it as well as to help more people understand the heaviness of ALS as a disease, which is pretty much what I'm trying to do by writing this article.

And, of course, I encourage you to get your hands dirty and share this post, which isn't really light and pleasant, because it's only when we're talking seriously about ALS that we're really pushing for a little change.

Answers are reprinted from Dingxiangwang public number (dingxiangwang); author: Zhang Jin, attending physician, Department of Neurology; editors: Capricorn, Liu Dongchen.

Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, is regarded as one of the most outstanding theoretical physicists after Albert Einstein. However the scientific superstar ended his legendary life today (March 14, 2018).

The greatness of Mr. Hawking lies in his contribution to the world, and even more so in the fact that he has resisted the torture of his illness without giving up his persistent pursuit of science.

Five contributions:

The singularity theorem, the prototype of the Big Bang theory, was formulated in 1970.

1971-1972: Black Hole Theorem. Some properties of black holes were revealed.

1974-1975: Black Hole Disappearance Theory: revealing how black holes disappear.

1982: Galaxy emergence theory: revealing how the structure of the universe as now seen after the Big Bang emerged

1983: Cosmic Wave Function: This function can theoretically be used to calculate the properties of the universe as seen.

Muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis, what kind of disease is it?

It's hard to imagine what a physicist who has achieved so much has gone through in his case, after Hawking was diagnosed at the age of 21 with a

Muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is an irreversible, fatal motor neuron disease in which lesions primarily invade the anterior horn of the spinal cord, brainstem, and frontal cortical motor neurons, resulting in a form of progressive upper and lower motor neuron damage, with clinical manifestations consisting of gradual muscular atrophy with progressive paralysis of the limbs, usually within three months of the first symptom.Death from respiratory failure within 3-5 years. The general incidence of the disease is predominantly in the middle-aged and elderly, adolescents are rare, the average age of onset is about 59 years old, the incidence rate of about every2 out of 100,000The pathogenesis of the disease is not well understood. Its pathogenesis is still unclear. There are various treatment methods, but they are all ineffective.

Currently there are few definitively effective treatments for modified disease, except for non-invasive positive pressure ventilator-assisted ventilation (NIPPV), which means that the muscles involved in respiration have atrophied and are weak, and gas can only be exchanged by pressing gas into the lungs through external pressure. This is the only means to extend the patient's survival time.

The rest of the means such as excitatory amino acid antagonists, antioxidants, neurotrophic therapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy, stem cell transplantation therapy, etc. are still being researched and explored, and there is still a long way to go before they can be applied clinically.

Basically, once you get sick, it's all about luck as to how long you live. There's really not much modern medicine can do.

It is such a disease that Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with it at the age of 21, paralyzed, unable to speak, and with only 3 fingers on his hand that he could move, and in such a situation persisted in his research on cosmology and black holes in the field of physics, which is unimaginably arduous for us regular people.

What is the source of Mr. Hawking's ability to achieve such greatness?

First and foremost is the love of the physics of the universe, and surely one cannot achieve so much without a love of the universe.

Secondly I feel that great achievements could not have been achieved without the aid of this disease. The disease immobilized his whole body, leaving only his brain to think, allowing him to concentrate all his energy on the theory of the universe and black holes without being distracted by other trivial matters. In fact, this has a lot of similarities with the medical theory of compensation, the loss of motor function will lead to the enhancement of non-motor function, which is the instinctive response of human beings. For example, some blind people have lost their eyesight, but their hearing is much more sensitive.

No great achievement can be achieved without perseverance, and achievements made in the midst of adversity are even more precious.

Mr. Hawking is gone, leaving us with not only the theory of the universe and black holes, but also a spirit of hard work!

It is with a heavy heart that today's Little Carpenter remembers a giant of science, Mr. Hawking go well and may there be no more Muscular Dystrophy Lateral Sclerosis in heaven!

If you like the small carpenter, please pay attention, your attention is the biggest power of medical knowledge science!

Do you still remember the Ice Bucket Challenge that was implemented at the end of 2014, when many celebrities and entrepreneurs participated in it, which can be said to be a famous activity for a while. In fact, the Ice Bucket Challenge was a public service event for people with muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis, also known as "tardive dyskinesia". The most famous patient suffering from muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis is the physicist Stephen Hawking, and it is because of him that people's attention to this disease has been invariably raised. According to reports, Mr. Hawking passed away today, bringing infinite sadness to everyone. It can be said that it is really the fall of the superstar of mankind. So, what kind of disease is the disease that took away Mr. Hawking?

Muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis, commonly known as "tardive dyskinesia", is one of the five most terminal diseases in the world. The disease causes the degeneration of motor neuron cells in the brain and spinal cord. Motor neurons control the body's speech, movement, breathing, swallowing and a series of conscious and unconscious activities. To put it bluntly, the clinical manifestation is that the human body gradually loses the ability to speak, move, breathe, swallow and so on. Most patients end up dying of respiratory failure.

This disease begins to start very insidiously, sometimes it manifests as inability to hold cutlery, sometimes it manifests as hoarse voice, and the symptoms are very inconspicuous. However, the symptoms will gradually worsen, such as limb weakness, affecting work, etc., and in the later stage, the disease will lose the ability of speech, movement, and even breathing and swallowing. Generally speaking, the average life expectancy is about 2-5 years from the onset of symptoms. This is why Mr. Hawking was told by his doctors when he first developed the disease that he would not live more than 5 years.

It must be said that Mr. Hawking, besides being a giant in the field of human physics, is also a strong man in life, accomplishing so many great research results with his body with illness. He is a legend, and his spirit of exploring science and his brave and tenacious spirit of life deserve to be learned and admired by everyone in the world.

There is no bigger news today than the death of Mr. Stephen Hawking. The news came very suddenly as a genius of his generation ended his great and brilliant life. In addition to his great contributions to physics and cosmology, he was also an inspirational star. Mr. Hawking had been battling a terminal disease, muscular dystrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS, acromegaly) for 55 years.

(Hawking's childhood photo of a healthy, cute baby)

Acromegaly is a very terrible disease, due to the cause of the disease we do not know yet (possible causes are poisoning, genetic mutation, immune dysfunction, viral infection, various theories are available, inconclusive), it will make our body's motor nerve cells are injured, gradually muscle motor weakness, atrophy, accumulated to the limb muscles when the patient will be paralyzed, accumulated to the articulation of the muscles when the patient is When it accumulates to the muscles of articulation, the patient will not be able to produce sound, unable to speak, and when it accumulates to the respiratory muscles, the patient will not be able to breathe, and will die of respiratory failure. As the cause of the disease is unknown, the pathogenic mechanism is unknown, there is no effective means of treatment, and the average patient can only survive for 2-3 years.

Yet Hawking lay in a special wheelchair, using a machine to vocalize and write papers, fighting tachyphylaxis for 55 years, and completing a sensational article.

Stephen Hawking entered Oxford University at the age of 17 and is considered a genius

Hawking was diagnosed with acromegaly at age 21, and doctors declared that he would only live two years.

When he learned that he had only two years to live

Hawking asked the doctor only one thing.

“what about the brain?”

(Will my brain be affected? Will it affect my intelligence, will it interfere with my thinking?)

(Image from the movie "The Theory of Everything," based on the memoirs of Stephen Hawking's wife)

When I was watching this movie, I instantly teared up when I heard this line.

Two years later, however, he received his Ph. D. and began research activities at Cambridge University

In 1985, when he was 43 years old, he lost his speech completely and had to rely on machines to synthesize his language.

Stephen Hawking's representative works include A Brief History of Time, The Universe in a Fruit Shell, and The Grand Design, all of which were completed after he became ill and paralyzed. He is known as the greatest physicist since Albert Einstein.

I cannot imagine that when I was in the prime of my life, I suddenly contracted a terminal illness and was told by the doctor that I had only two years to live. I can't help but ask myself, if I were myself, would I still study hard if I knew I had only two years to live? Would I still work hard on my research?

It's okay to die in the morning and die in the evening.

Mr. Hawking's fearlessness is deeply infectious.

I believe Mr. Hawking could have achieved even greater things if not for the disease.

("He was unable to write, had to rely on machines even to read books, and had to have literature placed on his desk to read articles, relying on his wheelchair to read them word by word like a silkworm chewing on a mulberry leaf").

Perhaps God doesn't like the perfect man, giving him superhuman intelligence while taking away his healthy body.

This flaw in him in turn made him a legend and made his greatness seem even greater.

When we encounter setbacks in life, study and work, do not give up lightly, do not feel sorry for ourselves and blame others. These difficulties and tribulations are all meant to add to the glory we have gained.

As a neurosurgeon myself, I have dealt with brain cancer, car accidents, and brain hemorrhages the most, and many times there is nothing I can do to cure them. I used to think that these diseases could not be cured at all, and I used to be disappointed that all the efforts of us mortals were nothing but "jokes" in the eyes of God. But look at Mr. Hawking's life, patients, suffering from disease, did not give up lightly, we should not easily in the face of difficulties to give in.

I wish other acromegaly sufferers the best of luck in overcoming the disease, and I hope the medical community can find a cure for this disease soon.

I think the effect on him was subversive.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Hawking had already developed what we now know as his major theories, the Singularity Theorem, the Area Theorem, and Hawking Radiation, which were qualitative and quantitative scientific theories built through mathematical modeling, and were only waiting to be experimentally verified. But after the onset of muscular dystrophic lateral sclerosis (acromegaly) rendered him immobile, he actually had difficulty performing his best mathematical calculations, and pretty much lost the ability to conduct strictly scientific research, and could only think in his head.

Under such circumstances, Hawking turned to the thinking of the universe and the fate of mankind, wrote a series of popular science books such as "A Brief History of Time" and "The Universe in a Fruit Shell", and introduced the concept of summation of history and imaginary time in the study of the universe, proposing the model of a borderless universe. Unfortunately, although Stephen Hawking had been very confident in this hypothesis, even confident that it would be like heliocentrism and relativity theory, become a major leap in human wisdom, become a theory that everyone believes in, and in the future people will recognize the no-boundary conception and the imaginary time as naturally as they recognize that the earth is round, I feel that none of the scientific community is actually very interested in the hypothesis, and very few people are going to study it. Maybe the vision is too far ahead of its time, or maybe it does make as little sense as imaginary time.

After the year 2000, Stephen HAWKING's illness has deteriorated to the extent that he can only type with the movements of his facial muscles and communicate with people through computer-synthesized voices, and he has become so old that he is undoubtedly incapable of carrying out scientific researches, but his thoughts on the future destiny of mankind have become more and more profound. The evolution of mankind is unprecedented and we have no history to refer to, so Hawking's warnings are worth pondering over and making positive efforts to protect our home and colonize the outer planets.

So I think the effect of the disease on Hawking should really be considered as subversive, in the sense that after the tachyphylaxis Hawking was no longer able to conduct normal scientific research.

Stephen Hawking's soul has long been in heaven, his spiritual wisdom has gone to infinity, as a gradual freezing of the body stiff, and his brain will be more sharp, his tireless scientific, for us to understand the universe has made a huge contribution! No acromegaly in heaven, travel well! 🙏🙏🙏

Steven Hawking, a true testament to the miracle of life in motion!

As much as muscular dystrophic lateral sclerosis has affected him, he has affected the world with his "movement"!

I have a master's degree in sports human science, physical education teacher, national fitness instructor, on the theory of exercise and my understanding of Mr. Hawking through various aspects of the understanding of the dialectical answer to this question.

While amyotrophic lateral sclerosis did cause lifelong regrets for Hawking physically, preventing him from pursuing his athletic endeavors and affecting his academic development, it also stirred up Hawking's strengths and struggles mentally and spiritually, and through the movement of only his eyes and three fingers, enabled him to achieve world-renowned successes in the world of physics, and in particular in advancing the general public's understanding of the physical and cosmic world!

Broadly speaking, movement not only refers to the activities of the body, but also brain activity (we all sometimes unconscious body activity in deep sleep), and exercise will stimulate the brain to secrete dopamine, making us physically and mentally pleasurable, and similarly, the brain's thinking activity will also bring some favorable effects on our body! So, once decades ago Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with only a few years to live, and yet he performed miracles with only body movement and brain movement storms!

In addition, the great scientist Stephen Hawking was a coxswain on the varsity rowing team, before he was 20 years old, and although smaller in stature, possessed a passion for adventurous enterprise that made him unique in rowing, and probably his only more famous athletic practice ......

Afterwards, despite his physical limitations, he was still actively involved in various human sports, from attending the opening ceremony or promotion of some sports, to helping to promote the United Kingdom in the World Cup through the analysis of scientific calculations, Hawking through his own way to show everyone his "sports" side!

Steven Hawking, who once said, I am the King of the World in the Fruitcake Universe! Now let's hope he's not only the King of Physics in an alternate universe, but also the King of Sports!

This is for ordinary people certainly can not stand the blow, but Hawking tenacious over, the doctor once told him that he could not live up to two years, but through his tenacious will, he survived, so Hawking he is still quite powerful, ordinary people in general there are not a few people can be so powerful perhaps early to give up, but the fact that has happened let Mr. Stephen Hawking quietly pass away. Let us together to remember Stephen Hawking...

Acromegaly, also known as motor neuron disease and Lou Gehrig's disease, is one of the rare diseases, the cause of which is still unknown, and may be related to heredity and genetic defects, as well as some environmental factors, such as heavy metal toxicity and so on.

Early symptoms are mild and easily confused with other diseases. The patient may just feel some weakness, throbbing flesh, easy fatigue and other symptoms, gradually progressing to generalized muscle atrophy and difficulty in swallowing. Eventually respiratory failure develops.

Although the affected person's physical muscles atrophy, intelligence and emotions are virtually unaffected.Like Mr. Hawking, his soul is imprisoned within his body, but his mind is active in the universe.

When we were kids, we all learned a text about Mr. Hawking, which still sticks in our minds, which says "He suffered from muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis at the age of 21 and was paralyzed, unable to speak, and could move only three fingers on his hand". Even so, his brain's memory, cognitive power, thinking power is still the same as usual, sharp thinking and clear-headed so that he made a world-renowned achievements in physics, but also let him watch his physical functions with the muscle atrophy little by little depleted, and finally towards the end of life.

In fact, tachyphylaxis is not rare, the ice bucket challenge and a while ago the most beautiful tachyphylaxis Peking University Dr. Lou Tao ...... brought tachyphylaxis into our vision.

The man is gone, and I hope that medicine will soon overcome this problem, so that those who have suffered so much because of the disease, will recover soon.

According to reports, the renowned physicist from the University of Cambridge, England, one of the greatest physicists of the modern eraStephen Hawking died today.

With Hawking's death, many people will think of his illness.

Hawking has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.。

patients with muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis.Total paralysis, unable to pronounce words。

The only places he can move are his two eyes and three fingers, and he can't move anything else at all.

(Web image, for reference only)

What kind of disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is also called motor neuron disease, the latter name being commonly used in the United Kingdom, and Charcot's disease in France, while Lou Gehrig's disease is also known in the United States.

We usually confuse amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with motor neuron disease.

it isUpper and lower motor neuron injuriesAfterwards, it leads to progressive weakness and atrophy of the muscles including the bulb (by bulb, I mean this part of the muscles innervated by the medulla oblongata), the limbs, the trunk, the chest and the abdomen.

(Web image, for reference only)

What are the main types of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?

The full Chinese name for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and it is one of the more common types of motor neuron disease.

There are a number of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis subtypes, and there are eight main clinical types based on symptoms.

But from a genetic standpoint, there are two main types of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis means that a relative of the patient's family has had the disease, and sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis means that no relative of the family has had the disease.

The patient is the first case in the family or the family history is not known.

(Web image, for reference only)

What are the symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?

Early symptoms are mild and easily confused with other diseases.

The patient may simply feelThere are some symptoms such as weakness, throbbing, easy fatigue and some other symptomsThe disease progresses gradually to generalized muscle atrophy and dysphagia.

Eventually respiratory failure develops.

(Web image, for reference only)

They can be broadly categorized into two types according to clinical symptoms:

1. Limb onset type

Symptoms begin with progressive atrophy and weakness of the muscles of the extremities before respiratory failure finally develops.

2、Medullary onset type

Difficulty in swallowing and speaking had developed by the time movement of the extremities was okay, and soon progressed to respiratory failure.

Care must be taken when there is weakness, muscle atrophy, throbbing of the muscles or symptoms that affect the throat swallowing, speaking, breathing, etc.。

You should visit a neurological specialist at a hospital as soon as possible.

Hunan Medical Chat Contributing Author: Hunan Aerospace Hospital Liu Jinwen