ALS Campaign Features Edgewood Resident

Edgewood Resident Featured in National

NOTE TO EDITORS: The MDA Web page featuring Deborah Basile will go live on May 5, 2008. Please contact MDA if you want to view the page in advance.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bob Mackle
Vice President - Public Information
(520) 529-5317
bobmackle@mdausa.org

MDA NATIONAL ALS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN FEATURES EDGEWOOD RESIDENT

TUCSON, Ariz., April 25, 2008 — The Muscular Dystrophy Association has included Deborah Basile of Edgewood in its national campaign promoting awareness of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), a devastating neuromuscular disease. May marks the 17th annual national ALS Awareness Month.
During May, Basile will be one of 31 people featured (one per day) in the MDA online series “ALS: Anyone’s Life Story.” The series highlights how people have learned to live with ALS, gaining new perspectives on life even as the disease progressively steals their ability to move, eat and breathe.

Basile, 54, learned she had ALS in 2005. Her photo and a brief biographical profile will appear Monday, May 5, on MDA’s ALS Division Web site (www.als-mda.org) and the Association’s main site (www.mda.org).
Prior to ALS, Basile was active as a physician substitute, volunteer emergency medical technician and horse trainer. These days, she says she has learned to be more tolerant and appreciative of the little things in life. She works daily on compiling her family’s genealogy so she can pass it on to her children.
Average life expectancy of people with ALS is three to five years after diagnosis. The disease attacks the nerve cells that control muscles, ultimately resulting in paralysis of all voluntary muscles, including those used for breathing and swallowing.

The “Anyone’s Life Story” series grew from the personal saga of fitness pioneer and entrepreneur Augie Nieto, who received a diagnosis of ALS at age 47 in 2005. A leader in the fitness equipment industry, Nieto underwent a dramatic shift in his life’s priorities after his diagnosis, from striving for business success to searching for personal significance and fulfillment. He and his wife, Lynne, are co-chairs of MDA’s ALS Division, and the driving force behind MDA’s Augie’s Quest research initiative.

MDA is the world leader in providing health care services for people with ALS, and in funding research that seeks treatments and a cure for the disease and some 40 other related diseases. The Association supports 225 hospital-affiliated MDA clinics across the country, of which 38 are designated MDA/ALS centers. The MDA clinic at University of New Mexico Hospital and the MDA/ALS Center at UNM Health Sciences Center – both in Albuquerque – serve residents with ALS, muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular diseases in the Albuquerque area.

— MDA —
For more information about ALS, including an online MDA Reporter’s Guide to ALS, and a schedule of MDA events being held nationwide to observe the 17th annual ALS Awareness Month, visit www.als-mda.org/media.