Remember last year’s Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS that was a huge success in raising awareness of the disease and raising money to help people fighting Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis? This year a new challenge is underway, called Smash SMA.

SMA, or Spinal Muscular Atrophy, is a neuromuscular disease similar to ALS. It is a genetic, progressive neuromuscular disease that causes motor neurons in the spinal cord to die off, in which the muscles can not receive messages sent from the brain causing muscles to weaken over time.

There are four types of SMA, Type 1 being the most severe. In Type 1, babies are not expected to live past two years of age and includes severe muscle weakness and trouble breathing. A person with SMA type 1 will have trouble holding their head upright and have trouble eating and swallowing.

SMA Type 2 is generally diagnosed between 6-months-old to 2-years-old. In this form, people with the disease are either unable to walk or lose the ability at a very young age and require the assistance of a wheel chair.

Type 3 is characterized by difficulty getting up from the floor or out of a chair. People with this form usually have trouble walking as they grow and may eventually need a wheel chair. The symptoms usually begin to appear anytime after 18 months into early adulthood.

Type 4 is the least severe of the disease, and people generally do not develop symptoms until after the age of 35, and it progresses at a much slower rate than the other forms of the disease, only causing a mild motor impairment, usually affecting walking.

The SMAshSMA challenge is simple. All that is required is someone taking an object, writing SMA on it, and taking a video smashing the object to pieces. Once complete, upload the video to social media with the hashtag #SMAshSMA and challenge 3 friends to do the same, or donate to Cure SMA.

The goal is to raise awareness of this disease, and one day to find a cure. Who is up to the challenge?