**2. Rehabilitation issues in ALS**

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a fatal disease with a challenging progressive course that results in a broad and ever-changing spectrum of care needs. Symptoms are varied (see Table 1) and need to be carefully assessed and managed. The timing of provision of appropriate care is important as whilst information needs to be provided when patients are psychologically in the right frame of mind, the options of certain interventions may be timelimited as the disease continues to progress.


Table 1. Symptoms experienced by ALS patients (adapted from (Oliver, 1996))
