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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by weakness, fatigue, loss of balance and coordination. The purpose of the study was to examine gait in ALS patients. Gait was compared in ALS with spinal and bulbar onset, while performing dual mental and motor tasks. Dual-task walking was performed by 27 ALS patients, 13 with spinal- and 14 with bulbar-onset disease. Twenty-nine healthy subjects were used as a control group. The subjects performed a basic, simple walking task, dual-motor task, dual-mental task, and combined motor and mental tasks. Results showed that dual-task paradigm has an effect on gait in ALS patients. Gait was differently affected in spinal and bulbar onset of ALS by some of the given tasks. Mental tasks had a larger effect than motor tasks in all gait parameters. In conclusion, both ALS forms have impaired gait in dual tasks. Simple walk in patients with spinal onset shows higher variability of certain gait parameters compared to bulbar-onset patients and controls. Differences in gait could also indicate postural instability and possible falls in complex walking situations.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most serious form of degenerative motor neuron disease in adults, whose relentless course leads to death within 2-5 years, generally due to respiratory failure. Apart from the age and site of onset, no other factors have consistently demonstrated to be related to the ALS outcome. The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of fasting serum lipid levels (cholesterol and triglycerides) and the body mass index (BMI) at the time of diagnosis on survival in ALS patients. The study included 82 patients with ALS residing in the Belgrade area who were diagnosed with ALS over a time period of 4 years (2006-2009). Survival was assessed by the Kaplan-Meier method. In this retrospective study, 39 (47.56%) patients had normal values of lipids and 43 (52.43%) patients had hyperlipidemia. The mean survival time from the onset of symptoms for patients with normal lipidemia was 4.21 ± 0.5 years, while the mean survival time from the onset of symptoms for patients with hyperlipidemia was 5.0 ± 0.67 years (P = 0.36). We also did not register a significant difference in survival in relation to gender, the site or age of onset, even though we noticed a longer survival in patients with hyperlipidemia in all of the examined groups, especially in the group of younger patients, with the onset of the disease before the age of 45 years. If we take into account the fact that BMI is pathophysiologically associated with cholesterol and triglyceride serum levels, the results in our study complement each other showing that patients with a higher BMI, registered in 28.8% of the cases, do not live longer. Our findings show that hyperlipidemia, which we found in 52.43% of our ALS patients, at the time of diagnosis, is not related to significantly longer survival.

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