NOTE:  I do apologize for this not being in alphabetical order.  The website was having issues saving all the information collected and distributed on the internet to this site. 

Tracy Babione

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, sometimes called Lou Gehrig's Disease, or Maladie de Charcot) is a progressive, usually fatal, neurodegenerative disease caused by the degeneration of motor neurons, the nerve cells in the central nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement. As one of the motor neuron diseases, the disorder causes muscle weakness and atrophy throughout the body as both the upper and lower motor neurons degenerate and die, ceasing to send messages to muscles. Unable to function, the muscles gradually weaken, atrophy, and develop fasciculations (twitches) because of denervation. 

Cancer is a group of diseases in which cells are aggressive (grow and divide without respect to normal limits), invasive (invade and destroy adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastatic (spread to other locations in the body). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited in their growth and do not invade or metastasize (although some benign tumor types are capable of becoming malignant). Cancer may affect people at all ages, even fetuses, but risk for the more common varieties tends to increase with age.^[1] Cancer causes about 13% of all deaths.^[2] According to the ACS, 7.6 million people died from cancer in the world during 2007.^[3] Apart from humans, forms of cancer may affect other animals and plants.

Cerebral refers to the affected area of the brain, the cerebrum (however the centers have not been perfectly localised and the disease most likely involves connections between the cortex and other parts of the brain such as the cerebellum) and palsy refers to disorder of movement. CP is caused by damage to the motor control centers of the young developing brain and can occur during pregnancy (about 75 percent), during childbirth (about 5 percent) or after birth (about 15 percent) up to about age three

The Disabled American Veterans, or DAV, is an organization for disabled veterans that helps them and their families through various means. It currently has over 1.2 million members

Dystrophy is any condition of abnormal development, usually due to malnutrition, especially denoting the degeneration of muscles.

Types of Dystrophy:

• Muscular dystrophy
• Duchenne muscular dystrophy
• Becker's muscular dystrophy
• Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
• Conal dystrophy

Multiple Sclerosis (abbreviated MS, formerly known as disseminated sclerosis or encephalomyelitis disseminata) is a chronic, inflammatory, demyelinating disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS). Disease onset usually occurs in young adults, is more common in women and the disease has a prevalence that ranges between 2 and 150 per 100,000 depending on the country or specific population

All Dictionary information obatined from the sources listed below:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org\

Other related sources for information collected:

Amyothropic Lateral Sclerosis

http://www.alsa.org/

COPD
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/lung/copd/index.htm

Cerebral Palsy
http://www.cerebralpalsyinfo.org/

Cancer
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp

Lupis
http://www.thelupussite.com/

Rehabilitation
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/rehabilitation.html

Parkinsons
http://www.parkinsons.org/

Huntingtons Disease

http://www.iifar.org/Huntingtons_Symptoms_Causes_Treatment.html

Multiple Sclerosis
https://health.live.com/article.aspx?id=articles/mlp/pages/1%2fMultiple_Sclerosis.htm&qu=Multiple+Sclerosishttps://health.live.com/article.aspx?id=articles/mlp/pages/1%2fMultiple_Sclerosis.htm&qu=Multiple+Sclerosis

HIV/AIDS

https://health.live.com/article.aspx?id=articles/mc/pages/0/DS00005.html&qu=AIDS

Huntingtons Disease results from genetically programmed degeneration of brain cells, called neurons, in certain areas of the brain. This degeneration causes uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual faculties, and emotional disturbance. Huntingtons Disease is a familial disease, passed from parent to child through a mutation in the normal gene.

A Shut-in is a person who is either unwilling or unable to leave his home, often due to disability, or a mental disease such as agoraphobia

Terminal illness is medical terminology popularized in the 20th century for an active and malignant disease which cannot be cured and is expected to lead to death. Palliative care is often prescribed to manage symptoms and improve quality of life. A patient who has such an illness is referred to as a terminal patient or terminally ill.  Certain types of cancer, emphysema, liver failure, kidney failure, asbestosis, mesothelioma, some mental illness and heart disease may be considered fatal, although liver failure, kidney failure and even heart disease could possibly prolong life with an organ transplant. AIDS could be considered a terminal illness, but most patients with AIDS succumb to other illnesses due to their deficient immune systems.  A patient is considered to be terminally ill when he/ she has a medical prognosis of a life expectancy of six months or less. Though a patient may be considered terminal, it doesn't always guarantee that he/she will die.