ALS Clinical Trials

Have you ever lived in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio or Indiana, and do you have ALS?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then we need you to help answer the question, “What causes ALS?” You and your family can help with an important research project. 

One question from almost every ALS patient is “What causes ALS” and “Is there something in the environment that caused my ALS”. The answers to these questions are not known. Many experts believe that there might be some environmental exposure that contributes to the development of ALS. 

At the ALS Center at UK, we are trying to find out the answers to these questions by learning exactly where ALS patients lived during their entire life. In this way, we will be able to determine if there is something in common at some point in time before a patient developed their ALS. We call this our Residential Survey Project. To do this, we need every ALS patient who lived in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio or Indiana at some point in their lives to come forward and participate.

How you can help

• Volunteer for the study by contacting our ALS Center through Jessica Carpenter at 859-218-5061 or jdcumm0@email.uky.edu or Kathie Vanderpool at 859-218-5064 or kvander@email.uky.edu. They will send you a research consent form that explains the study and asks for your participation.
• After we get the signed consent form, we will send you a copy of the Residential Survey. This will ask you to write down the exact location of each place that you lived since birth. This can be a house address if you lived in a city or a description of a place you might have lived in the country. Basically, give directions to the house where you lived. We also need the time you resided at each place. This usually is a fun, family activity trying to reconstruct the moving from one place to another over your lifetime.
• Send the completed form back to us in a stamped envelope that we will provide.
• We will probably have to call you if we have questions after we review your information.
• Don’t worry if you have not been treated as a patient at our ALS Center at UK. This study is for everyone in these five states.