Balancing between autonomy and support: coping strategies by patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) makes a strong psychological impact, and the study of efforts by patients to cope with the course of the disease could be an important first step in the optimisation of care treatment. With this aim, in our study we assessed the coping strategies by a population of ALS patients, according to some clinical parameters and the worsening of the disease. We have administered the MND coping scale to 62 patients, firstly at the admission to our neurorehabilitation unit and secondly after 1year. Each factor score has been related to age and progression of the disease, and comparisons between males and females have also been made. The increasing relevance of seeking support from families and technological devices is probably the most interesting finding: such a result stimulates remarkable considerations about the proper balance between such support and patients' autonomy. As a whole, data confirm the importance of a proper and well-timed psychological intervention for patients and their families. In detail, improving adaptive coping strategies, together with sustaining those which tend to weaken along the progression of the disease, could be an important goal in psychological counselling for both patients and family members.