What is wrong with stephen hawking

Hawking used assistive technology to compensate for mobility and speech difficulties. He used a thumb switch and a blink-switch attached to his glasses to control his computer. By squeezing his cheek muscles and "blinking" an infra-red switch was activated and he was able to scan and select characters on the screen in order to compose speeches, surf the Internet, send e-mail and "speak" through a voice synthesizer. Stephen Hawking continued to be active in his research and personal life because he developed effective strategies for personal care, speaking, writing, and research activities that compensated for functional limitations imposed by ALS.

His experiences illustrated the following:. Increasing the participation of people with disabilities in computing fields. Background Dr. Solution Dr. Conclusions Dr. Later, Stephen dubbed his first two years of Oxford the most boring of his life, saying he found it ridiculously easy.

When Stephen came home from graduate school for Christmas at age 21, his family noticed he was often tripping over and was generally clumsier than usual. He was taken to a doctor, where they ran tests for over two weeks, and eventually diagnosed him with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ALS , also known as motor neurone disease.

ALS is a neurological condition that causes people to gradually lose control of their voluntary muscles. At just 21, shockingly, doctors told Stephen he only had two years to live. But while Stephen soon had difficulty walking and his speech became almost incomprehensible, his disease progressed more slowly than the doctors had predicted. His intellectual strengths were the stuff of awe, but so was his ability to lead not simply a normal life, but an extraordinary one, while suffering with a tremendously debilitating condition.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS is one of several types of motor neurone diseases. It gradually and inexorably paralyzes patients, usually killing within about four years. Hawking was diagnosed in , when he was just 21 years old. He survived for 55 years with the incurable condition. Probably it was also due to the exclusive nursing and medical care that he received.

Hawking received round-the-clock medical care, at first from a wife who gave up her career ambitions to tend to him, and later from a team of nurses. He was told when diagnosed that he likely would not live long — but he beat the odds.

Twenty percent live five years or more; up to 10 percent will live more than 10 years. People diagnosed when they are young, as Hawking was, live for longer for reasons that are not well understood. It may be that a different cause of the disease shows up in young adults.