In a way it is--ALS kills you quicker - two to three years, but Alzheimer's takes ten years. In a strange way, it seems to guarantee a long (if helpless) life. It takes a toll even more on the caregivers.
A man at my church who was caretaker for his wife firmly said TEN years and that's kind of held true for the admittedly non-scientific study I've taken.
Other brain related diseases: Parkinson's, MS, and the grand-daddy of them all: Huntington's. The curse of Huntington's is that, while there MAY be heredity factors in those other diseases, Huntington's almost guarantees that children of sufferers (at least half of them) will get the disease.
I pray every day for the research into these brain-related diseases that seem to be growing like crazy.
Who ever heard of ALS until Lou Gehrig...now I've known personally 4 sufferers (3 of them dead now)
Ten years for my mom, but that was from the initial diagnosis (when I really became apparent something was wrong).
I think the disease had been attacking her for a long time before.