After a Decade of Lobbying, ALS Patients Gain Faster Access to Disability Payments
Anita Baron first noticed something was wrong in August 2018, when she began to drool. Her dentist chalked it up to a problem with her jaw. Then her speech became slurred. She managed to keep her company, which offers financing to small businesses, going, but work became increasingly difficult as her speech worsened. Finally, nine months, four neurologists and countless tests later, Baron, now 66, got a diagnosis: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
ALS, often called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankees first baseman who died of it in 1941, destroys motor neurons, causing people to lose control of their limbs, their speech and, ultimately, their ability to breathe. It’s usually fatal in two to five years.
People with ALS often must quit their jobs and sometimes their spouses do, too, to provide care, leaving families in financial distress. A decade-long campaign by advocates highlighting this predicament notched a … Read the rest