Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Or something else? Differential Diagnosis

Musculoskeletal system and connective tissue (M00-M99).

  • Inclusion body myositis – neuromuscular disease; trunk-related weakness, fewer atrophies.

Psyche – nervous system (F00-F99; G00-G99).

  • Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) – weakening of muscle reflexes, protein elevation in cerebrospinal fluid (“nerve water“), pathological nerve conduction velocity.
  • Dementia, frontal
  • Neuropathy (multifocal, motor)
  • Polyneuropathy (chronic, motor)
  • Pseudobulbar paralysis – disease caused by a lesion of the tractus corticobulbaris (corticonuclearis); clinical picture: dysarthria (speech disorders), tongue mobility impairments, dysphagia (dysphagia) and hoarseness, furthermore (apparent) affect incontinence (lack of affect control) with forced laughter and forced crying.
  • Syringobulbia – disease of the medulla oblongata associated with its destruction.
  • Syringomyelia – neurological disease that usually begins in middle age and leads to the formation of cavities in the gray matter of the spinal cord.
  • Tropical spastic paraparesis – neurological disease caused by infection with human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1).
  • Cervical myelopathy (chronic) – disease affecting the cervical portion of the spinal cord, which occurs mainly in spinal stenosis.