Stratification and prognosis prediction in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease

In this thesis I will address the problem of stratifying ALS patients and predicting the most important prognoses, inherent in this disease, such as noninvasive ventilation (NIV), percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG), and death. Stratifying patients might be important because the disease has many different symptoms with different entities, and patients might vary greatly. For this reason, an attempt was made to test whether predicting prognoses on specific clusters of patients is more effective and informative, compared with using the entire population without any distinction. Clusters were formed, taking into consideration the symptoms and progressio ìn rate of the disease. Symptoms can arise in three different areas of the body: bulbar, motor, and respiratory areas. The motor zone has three other subcategories, which are the upper and lower limbs and the trunk. The clusters, moreover, were done, first taking into consideration only the patient's first visit and then also six months of visits. The goal of the study is to try to predict the future prognoses of patients, so that the disease can be slowed and countered.