Who Is At Risk?
Approximately 6,000 individuals are diagnosed with ALS each year. In addition, approximately 20,000 people in the United States have ALS at any given time. Individuals are typically diagnosed with ALS between the ages of 40 and 70. Life expectancy with ALS can range from three years to more than 10 years, depending on access to emerging technology and an ALS nursing home in the United States.**
Within the ALS CARE Database, 60 percent of people with ALS are men, and 93 percent are Caucasian. As people increase in age, the percentage of men and women with ALS becomes greater. For reasons that are unknown, military veterans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ALS than the general public.**
**Facts and information sourced from http://als.org/.
