This month marks the 3-year anniversary of our flagship ALS community. While there have been so many exciting milestones we’ve reached in that time, we’re always looking at ways to bring new insight to this disease. Today, we’re announcing the launch of our Genetics Search Engine for people with ALS. Imagine finding other patients just […]
Announcing the PatientsLikeMe ALS Genetics Search Engine Read More »
In today’s issue of the journal Science two papers describe the discovery of a new gene for ALS (you can read the abstracts here and here). Around 90% of ALS cases are sporadic, i.e. we don’t know what causes them, but for 5-10% of patients the disease runs in their family (known as familial ALS,
A new gene for ALS: What sharing your genetics could mean for research Read More »
This blog post is the second in a series from our attendance at the 19th International Symposium on ALS/MND in Birmingham UK in November 2008. When PatientsLikeMe attended the previous ALS/MND Symposium in Toronto Canada in December 2007, I was given a platform presentation to show the assembled clinicians, scientists and researchers what we had
ALS Symposium 2008: New features for ALS patients Read More »
Back in November, Jamie Heywood and I attended the 19th International ALS/MND Symposium in Birmingham, UK. As part of an ongoing series of blog posts reporting from that conference, I have put together a narrated slideshow which is an abridged version of a platform presentation I was asked to give at the conference about the
ALS Symposium 2008: A history of ALS online Read More »
PatientsLikeMe members share health data on the site adding their own individual-level health experience to a repository of structured outcome data. The result? An unprecedented data set that informs medical conversation not only within the patient community but also with the larger scientific one. Earlier this fall, the venue for this conversation was the annual
Structuring and Presenting the Patients’ Perspective at AMIA Read More »
Mimi Yin over at The Common Data Project blog posed some interesting questions about data in our communities: Back in April, I wrote about the site PatientsLikeMe.com, which provides a wonderful new service that allows individual users to share the most intimate details of their medical conditions and treatments, which in turn creates a pool
How representative are PatientsLikeMe patients to the general population? Read More »
One of the things we’re most proud of at PatientsLikeMe is our ability to rapidly carry out research. There are some obvious benefits online: patients can can take part whenever they want, take as much time as they need (often using assistive technology), and are more likely to be open and honest about subjects that
ALS Patients: Give us the truth about cognitive change Read More »
PatientsLikeMe was born of a passion to provide the best tools for patients to participate in their own care, share experiences and change the way medical research is done.Thanks to our members and the dedication of our growing team, our first community, ALS, has now been open to the public for two years! The community
It’s been two years!! ALS Community Report Read More »
by James Heywood Update (March 7, 2008): PatientsLikeMe ALS Lithium Research released. Does it work? On February 12th of this year, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (one of the leading science journals) published a paper entitled — Lithium Delays Progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. After 10 years researching ALS, I believe it is
Does It Work? Lithium and ALS Read More »
This year PatientsLikeMe was the major sponsor of the 18th International ALS/MND Symposium held in Toronto, Canada. Research scientist Paul Wicks, marketing officer Lori Scanlon, and community liaison Emma Willey were all in attendance to tell people about the site. We first started telling the ALS/MND community about us at the Yokohama conference in 2006,
PatientsLikeMe at the Toronto ALS/MND Symposium Read More »
