ALS Testing Through Home-based Outcome Measures

ALS AT HOME is a single-center study of up to 150 participants being done to determine the extent to which frequent sampling can improve the qualities of outcome measures collected at home by study participants. The objectives of this study are to 1. assess the extent to which frequent sampling can reduce variability for the following outcome measures in ALS patients: ALSFRS-R, quantitative hand grip, pulmonary function, EIM in 4 extremities, and actigraphy and voice/speech tracking; 2. assess the compliance of ALS patients in obtained outcome measures at home over the course of 9 months; 3. directly compare outcome measures collected by patients with measurements obtained at study sites at less frequent intervals by co-enrolling 50 patients participating in the Answer ALS study; and 4. provide information to Answer ALS to more fully characterize patients in that study. The study proposed here will assess the extent to which reducing variability of measurement through frequent sampling can reduce both sample size and duration of clinical trials, provide a first-of-its-kind detailed assessment of disease progression, and evaluate an entirely new paradigm for patient participation in such trials without the need to be geographically yoked to a clinical study center. An important component of this proposal is to jointly recruit 50 patients who also participate in the Answer ALS study that intends to generate 1000 IP cell lines from patients who receive ongoing assessment at 5 clinical sites. The 100 participants that will be co-enrolled in Answer ALS and ALS AT HOME will perform outcome measures at home in addition to having outcome measures performed at clinic sites through Answer ALS participation. Therefore, the investigators will be able to directly assess how the measures obtained by patients at home relate to those obtained by a trained evaluator at a study center using standard metrics. The investigators will also provide all data generated at home to the Answer ALS investigators, further increasing the phenotypic data available for that project.