While the current Chicago professional sports landscape certainly seems like a barren desert, fans recently stumbled upon a rare oasis with former Chicago Bears Devin Hester and Steve McMichael being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Hester is arguably the best kick returner in NFL history, while McMichael was a cornerstone of the vaunted 1985 Super Bowl-winning defense that frequently features in discussions of the best defense in league history.
With all due respect to Hester, this story is McMichael's story — not that a great defensive tackle made it into the Hall of Fame, but that he lived to see it happen.
Three years ago, McMichael developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive and ultimately fatal motor neurone disease that causes loss of muscle control and paralysis, but preserves eye movement and mental health. Patients usually die from pulmonary complications as their muscles cannot tolerate coughing, leading to pneumonia and eventually the inability to breathe.
Currently, about 30,000 Americans suffer from ALS, and in athletes, it may be linked to previous head trauma. There is no cure, but McMichael and others like him are living longer and better with the help of new assistive technologies.
ALS is commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease because New York Yankees first baseman great Lou Gehrig was the first public figure to be diagnosed with the disease (the subject of his famous “Luckiest Man Alive” speech at Yankee Stadium in 1939). Gehrig died less than two years after his diagnosis because a tracheotomy, which suctions and clears the lungs, wasn't performed and portable ventilators, which “breathe” for the patient, hadn't yet been invented. McMichael is fortunate to have had the benefit of both and more.
While ALS patients are reported to survive two to five years after diagnosis, consider the cases of two patients who illustrate the importance of assistive technology in ALS: Dr. Stephen Hawking and Dr. Steve Gleeson. One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Dr. Hawking lived for 55 years with the help of a tracheotomy, a ventilator, and equipment devised by the UK's National Health Service. Dr. Gleeson, a former safety for the New Orleans Saints, has had ALS since 2011 and is one of the most impressive success stories of assistive technology.
Gleason worked with Congress to pass the Steve Gleason Act, making eye-tracking and speech-generating medical devices available to patients who need them, and is collaborating with Microsoft to develop a new generation of these tools. He founded Team Gleason, which is dedicated to developing gaze-controlled software for patients who cannot speak. He is a spokesperson for ALS patients, has climbed Machu Picchu, and is the father of two.
“I can do everything a normal person can do on a tablet: talk, video conference, text, stream music, buy Christmas gifts online, pay bills, tweet,” Gleeson says, describing his progress.
American healthcare is evolving at the same time as the population ages, with more people surviving strokes, Parkinson's disease, and other neurological and muscular diseases. In addition to this, thousands of younger patients with spinal cord and brain injuries are being enabled to participate in everyday life through the latest hardware and software. This technology is essential to help both the young and the elderly, allowing patients to have social interactions and combating the ever-present threat of isolation and loneliness.
These patients often require customized equipment because standardized devices may not be suitable. Tablet screens are often too small, and patients may not have the dexterity or strength to use smartphone keys. Yet specialized therapists are also called upon to help those with mobility challenges (physical therapy), assist those with breathing problems (respiratory therapy), help them communicate (speech therapy), and return to daily activities (occupational therapy). The race to normalize daily life for ALS patients and others creates endless career and entrepreneurial opportunities for tech-savvy innovators.
In the early days of the computer age in medicine, devices like electronic medical records, computer scanners, and robotic surgery made clear advances in patient care. But all of this had the opposite effect of minimizing interaction between caregivers and patients. Only now are computers, tablets, and smartphones being used to help patients with neurological diseases, visual impairments, and other disabilities reintegrate into society.
All of this is happening as physician-assisted euthanasia becomes an increasingly popular option in Western Europe, Canada and the U.S. But the lesson from Gleason and Hall of Famer McMichael is that, at least when it comes to ALS, assistive technology is a better approach than euthanasia.
Dr. Corey Franklin is a retired intensive care physician and author of COVID Diaries 2020-2024: Analyzing the Reality of an Epidemic.
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