Eric Dane, known for roles on “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Euphoria,” died this week at age 53 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, according to reporting by Associated Press writer Laura Ungar. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Dane’s death came less than a year after he announced his diagnosis.

ALS is described as a fatal disorder of the nervous system that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. As those nerve cells stop working and die, nerves no longer trigger the specific muscles they control, and the condition gradually worsens until movement becomes severely limited.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said ALS is rare. In 2022, there were nearly 33,000 estimated cases, and researchers project the number will rise to more than 36,000 by 2030. The disease is slightly more common in men than in women, and it tends to strike in midlife, between the ages of 40 and 60.

Summary

Experts say ALS can begin with subtle symptoms before it becomes clearly disabling. The earliest signs are often described as muscle twitching and weakness in an arm or leg, which can progress as muscles stop acting and reacting correctly.

Over time, people may lose strength and coordination in their arms and legs. Reporting cited University of California San Francisco Health experts saying that feet and ankles may become weak and that muscles in the arms, shoulders and tongue may cramp or twitch, while swallowing and speaking may become difficult and fatigue may set in. The ability to think, see, hear, smell, taste and touch typically is not affected, according to the UCSF experts.

Eventually, muscles used for breathing can become paralyzed. As ALS advances, patients may be unable to swallow and inhale food or saliva, and most people with ALS die of respiratory failure, according to the reporting.

ALS is also difficult for doctors to diagnose because there is no single test that can confirm the condition. In general, doctors will conduct a physical exam along with lab tests and imaging of the brain and spinal cord, and they may interpret a set of physical findings as potential indicators, the reporting said.

Those findings can include an unusual flexing of the toes, diminished fine motor coordination, painful muscle cramps, twitching and spasticity, a type of stiffness that causes jerky movements.

There is no known cure for ALS. The drug riluzole has been approved, and Mayo Clinic is cited as saying it may extend survival in the early stages or extend the time until a breathing tube is needed, according to the Associated Press reporting.

The report also noted that another drug, Relyvrio, was pulled from the U.S. market by Amylyx Pharmaceuticals in 2024. It said the drug’s development had been financed in part by the ALS Association, which was a major beneficiary of the 2014 “ice bucket challenge” viral phenomenon.

As ALS progresses, other medications are sometimes prescribed to help control symptoms. Choking can be common, so patients may need feeding tubes, braces, wheelchairs, speech synthesizers or computer-based communication systems, the reporting said.

After the onset of the disease, experts say patients may survive from two years to a decade. Most people live from two to five years after symptoms develop, and about a fifth live more than five years after they are diagnosed.

ALS is often associated with Lou Gehrig, the Hall of Fame New York Yankees player. Gehrig was diagnosed in 1939 on his 36th birthday, died in 1941, and was the face of the disease for decades.