Education level | Marital status | Living environment | Sex | Communication* | |||||
Higher | 13 | Married | 21 | Own household | 25 | Male | 15 | Normal | 7 |
Lower | 14 | Single | 3 | Nursing home | 2 | Female | 12 | Impaired | 15 |
Widowed | 2 | With devices | 3 | ||||||
Divorced | 1 | ||||||||
Onset of ALS | Type of ALS | Artificial ventilation | Invasive ventilation | PEG | |||||
Bulbar | 2 | Sporadic | 27 | Yes | 11 | Yes | 3 | Yes | 6 |
Spinal | 25 | Genetic | 0 | No | 18 | No | 24 | No | 21 |
↵* Normal communication refers to normal speech process; impaired communication ranged from ‘detectable speech disturbance’ to ‘communication intelligible with repeating’; with devices referring to loss of useful speech and communication exclusively possible by using assistive technology and/or eye movements.
ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; PEG, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy.