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Down Syndrome : Genetic Disorder And The Most Common Autosomal Chromosome Abnormality Essay

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Down Syndrome

Introduction Down syndrome is a genetic disorder and the most common autosomal chromosome abnormality in humans. Down syndrome occurs when an individual has a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21. This additional genetic material alters of development and causes the characteristics associated with Down syndrome. The primary purposes of this article are to: establish the origin of the term Down syndrome; determine the possible causes of Down syndrome; Likelihood of having a child with Down syndrome; and treatments for humans diagnosed with Down syndrome.
The Origins of the Term Down Syndrome In 1866, a British physician, John Langdon Down, for whom the syndrome is named, first described Down Syndrome, as ?Mongolism.? Down was a superintendent of an asylum for children with mental retardation. He observed a set of children with common features who were distinct from children with mental retardation. The term Down Syndrome didn?t become the accepted term until the early 1970s. More was learned about the condition in 1959, when French Pediatrician/Geneticist Profess Jerome Lejeune discovered that individual with Down syndrome had an extra chromosome. Shortly thereafter, chromosome studies were developed to confirm the diagnosis of Down syndrome (Wright, 2011).
What is Down Syndrome In every cell in the human body there is a nucleus, where genetic materials are stored in genes. Genes carry the code responsible for

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