Motor Neurone Disease: Ethics, Outcome Variables and Clinical Scales

Clinical trials in motor neurone disease (MND; USA: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS) present challenging ethical and methodological problems and practical difficulties in their implementation. Some of these are shared with other neurological disorders and others are more disease-specific. The fatal progressive course over a median of 2–3 years and the patchy, incapacitating and variable clinical expression are major features of the disorder.