About Steven Hawking. He has supposedly had ALS since his days as a grad student in the early 1970's. That would mean that he has lived (with great disability but very successfully, professionally) with whatever his disorder is for no less than 35-40 years. To my knowledge, there are either none or very few others who have been known to survive with ALS for that length of time.

Clearly, there are numerous distinct motor neuron diseases with distinct etiologies and clinical outcomes. Reminds one of PD doesn't it?

Robert