Talk:ALS

Article title

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)

I agree and have started a move request regarding this. Slothwizard (talk) 22:24, 25 May 2026 (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)

Lou Gehrig's Disease in Canada

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)

Just saw this note after I made some formatting edits to the lede including this. Firstly, thank you for being very meticulous and responsible in explaining your reasoning and demonstrating good faith. I wonder if "in North America" might be sufficiently general enough to implicitly include Canada as a possible region of widespread usage while also not making a precise claim? It doesn't address the root question, for which I also can't find an RS, but perhaps it moves us in a "less wrong" direction...? Open to changes. Aeffenberger (talk) 21:18, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for finding those sources - right now I think we've conveying all the info we need to in the lede, i.e. that while ALS is the most common name, it does also go by different names. We do already have in the Name subsection " In some countries, especially the United States, ALS is called Lou Gehrig's disease" PaulWicks (talk) 13:39, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

neuralink

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)

Suspected LLM / Notable individuals with ALS

This edit added a long list of "Famous People with ALS" that seems like an LLM edit - emdash, first person narration, listing names robotically with odd grouping... What made me sure of its LLM nature was when I went to Gemini 3, asked it to name me some names, and receiving very similar formatting and grouping ("notable advocates", "science & academia").

Just want to put this here to potentially make future patrols' life easier.

_{On emdash: i do type them myself when editing in mainspace by hitting Option-Spc, so i don't really use it as a powerful indicator; it does amplify the suspicion once it arouse, though. On my LLM suspicion threshold: I haven't actively used an LLM since GPT3.5 came out because I hate it, and for that I'm really slow to spot LLM generated texts.} 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk} 02:39, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I don’t see a problem with this use of LLMs, so long as the list is checked and confirmed. However, I do think removing the list was still the right thing to do, as we just don’t need a list of famous people here, and the ALS § Society and culture section is good as is for coverage of probably the two main people (Hawking and Gehrig) who should be mentioned, with the rest better covered at the list linked in that section’s hatnote: List of people with motor neuron disease. Anyone else to be added should probably be the subject of significant media discussing or portraying their experience with the disease (as Hawking is). — HTGS (talk) 03:24, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me on this!Somehow I forgot to mention quality of the edit as the most important merit...

I agree that LLM use is not a problem per se, it's just that experienced editors might want to respond to the (low-effort) use of it differently.

For me, low-effort contributions feel less harsh/uncomfortable to blanket revert. For edits with evidently significant effort in it, I've always pressured myself to improve on, instead of reverting, problematic edits; I also try to sound nice and give detailed advice / critiques in edit summary, as a form of recognition / endorsement for one's labor. I do this partially to let new users feel welcomed, and because that individual humans can learn and improve... Which might not apply to the stochastic LLMs.

...And it's for that I... discriminate? against low-effort LLM contribs - I do not want to dedicate my own labor to support / welcome a low-effort copy-paste job of a prompt.

In anyways, cheers :) 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk} 11:03, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

This is a clear case of LLM usage and a perfect example as to why it shouldn't be used in this way. Aside from the clear MOS violations, it includes speculative information and irrelevant details. Should be reverted. Thanks for writing this out as hopefully the editor can better understand why the edit is inappropriate. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 16:01, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

It was totally unsourced, and thus an NPOV and BLP violation, so the removal was proper. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:45, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging the LLM accounts. Not my area of expertise but if they're anything like social media bots I'd be concerned someone is going to have them make lots of very small edits to build credibility slowly (like neurone to neuron here) but as the accumulate credibility they could be part of a coordinated effort to change bigger things. Given that Eric Dane has sadly passed away, I'm expecting a higher number of visitors over the next week so will be on the lookout for changes. On the topic of famous people, I think we need to keep that extremely small because the gap between Stephen Hawking and everyone else is very large. Lou Gehrig is not well known outside the US, and then the relative fame of everybody else seems to depend on your age and geography e.g. when I was first starting, the actor David Niven was the most famous person who'd died from it. PaulWicks (talk)

Wiki Education assignment: Genetics Spring 2026

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2026 and 1 May 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aliang1 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Gtorres13 (talk) 03:56, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 25 May 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 07:07, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

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ALS → Amyotrophic lateral sclerosisAmyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Although ALS is more commonly used than amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, this does not warrant moving the page to its abbreviated form. Under WP:MEDTITLE, the article title should be the scientific or recognised medical name. Heart attack redirects to myocardial infarction, despite the fact that the latter is less recognizable. The guidelines for abbreviating a medical article is more stringent than WP:CRITERIA due to WP:MEDTITLE. Some medical articles do maintain an abbreviated title:

HIV/AIDS – This is abbreviated because there aren't any alternatives. Unabbreviating this to "Human immunodeficiency virus/Acquired immune deficiency syndrome" is not reasonable and, additionally, causes it to lose its meaning. Of course, this is a combination of two illnesses caused by the same infection, making its abbreviated form even more appropriate.

COVID-19 – When unabbreviated to "Coronavirus disease 2019", it doesn't lose its meaning, but it is not the official name.

ALS is short for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, just like ADHD is short for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In other articles, ALS is often first mentioned unabbreviated, and then abbreviated immediately after. Slothwizard (talk) 22:06, 25 May 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 23:08, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose Per WP:COMMONNAME. To my knowledge this overrides WP:MEDTITLE, and nobody has tried to move myocardial infarction recently, so consensus can change. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:23, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support per WP:ACROTITLE, which states that abbreviations should only be used if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject. It's not clear that either of these are true in the case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: the majority of the sources cited in the article refer to the disease using its full name, and Acronym Finder suggests that "ALS" has other, equally common meanings (e.g. advanced life support). Zacwill (talk) 09:40, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

  In situations not oriented towards scientific researchers and doctors, it is in fact known primarily as "ALS". This is a general knowledge encyclopedia and does not bend over backwards to use official names for diseases. Otherwise polio would definitely be at poliomyelitis right now. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 00:44, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  Most sources in this article use "amyotrophic lateral sclerosis" at least as a first mention. "ALS", abbreviated, is not as ubiquitous as something like an ATM. Slothwizard (talk) 00:50, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

• Support per Britannica. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:56, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

  Simply pointing to Britannica is not an argument, as it uses entirely different policies to name its articles. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 00:40, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS:ACROTITLE aka WP:NCA. The topic is more commonly known by its acronym, so that should be the title. More users come to the article searching the acronym to learn the definition of the acronym than those who search the definition and come to learn its acronym. Mdewman6 (talk) 09:59, 28 May 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose. The acronym is the most common name. I don't see how this is different than HIV/AIDS. Jessintime (talk) 11:54, 2 June 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose per MOS:ACROTITLE. WP:MEDTITLE does not cover cases of acronyms, as acronyms are not necessarily slang or unscientific, and, in this case, it is simply a shortening of the scientific name. WP:WFTWA stresses that as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is targeted towards a general audience, not a medical/academic audience. Fundgy (talk) 09:40, 5 June 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose. I disagree with the nom's assessment of MEDTITLE and the rest of the policy/guideline basis for the proposal. ALS is the medical or scientific name, or at least one of them, not unlike HIV. This is a somewhat borderline case but, consistent with MOS:ACROTITLE guidance, this is one where the full name is very likely less recognizable to a general, non-specialist audience. This is unlike ADHD, where the initialism is undoubtedly more common but the full name consists of largely familiar words that align with popular understanding of the disease. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is inscrutable to even highly literate readers who aren't specifically familiar with the full name for the disorder. It is also unlike heart attack where popular usage is at least somewhat imprecise and may refer to other pathology even though there is a clear primary topic. The proposed change is not unreasonable, but it does not represent an improvement. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 23:50, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.