Huntington’s Disease
Imagine not remembering the names of your family members, having difficulty swallowing, not being able to control your movements. Imagine being trapped in a body that is turning against you, slowly deteriorating around you and you are helpless to stop it. This is the very real and terrifying reality for those with Huntington’s disease. “Many describe the symptoms of HD as having ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s – simultaneously.” This disease isn’t picky, it devastates the families of people from all races or ethnic groups around the world, and a person’s sex isn’t an issue. “Huntington’s disease is a fatal genetic disorder that causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain.” This disease is passed from
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I think the main reason is this disease currently has no cure, and few treatments that aren’t fully successful. These treatments are not comprehensive wither. There are drugs for the physical symptoms and others for the psychological symptoms. However, many of these drugs compound other symptoms. For example, Tetrabenazine suppresses involuntary movements, but the side effects can worsen or trigger depression or other psychiatric disorders. Conversely, Zyprexa, an antipsychotic, which may help suppress agitation, mood swings, and violent outbursts, can also cause movement disorders. So not only are the available treatments only treating part of the problems for short periods of time, the treatments are also combating other treatments and causing their own sets of problems. Even therapies like speech, physical, psychological, and occupations, are only effective at certain stages and for certain periods of time. Nevertheless, I think it is hard to discuss such a scary disease, that many people can’t even phantom having to deal with. Also, the fact that it is a genetic disorder that can be tested for can make the number of people who are affected feel small and removed from the populace as a whole. This silence and almost ostracism that this disease faces in communities, in organizations, in the media, this has an impact on the support available for those who suffer from this disease. This lack of visibility leads to a lack of information. This means that members of a community may not be equipped to offer social, economic, or emotional support for individuals and families dealing with this disease. This creates an isolation for these people who are at the greatest need for
Huntington's disease is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder. It is passed on to children from one or both parents (though two parents with Huntington's is extraordinarily rare) in an autosomal dominant manner. This is different from autosomal recessive disorder, which requires two altered genes (one from each parent) to inherit the disorder.
Huntington’s disease begins affecting the organs, it destroys the function of the multiple roles of the nervous system and the brain cells. The disease causes advanced deterioration and loss of brain cells, and contributes to a devastating loss of motor functions followed by advanced cognitive and intellectual impairment.
Huntington's Disease (HD) is a disability that will continue to get worse and worse over time. The lifespan for someone living with HD is 10 to 25 years after they are diagnosed and showing symptoms, which is usually around the ages of 30 to 50 ("What Is Huntington's Disease," 2017). These symptoms begin at different times and depend on the individual. Overtime, the person affected will begin to lose their ability to walk, talk, and eat over the course of these 10 to 25 years resulting in the need for 24 hour care.
family, and an analysis will be done. This sampling of the blood will be performed
Huntington’s disease is a hereditary brain disorder that is progressive in neurodegeneration; which means, there is a loss of function and structures of one’s neurons. In the long run it results in the loss of both mental and physical control. The disease affects muscle coordination, cognition and behavior. It used to be known as Huntington’s chorea because it is the most common genetic disease that is the cause of abnormal twitching. Huntington 's has an intense effect on patients, as individuals gradually lose the ability to reason, speak and swallow. Also, motor symptoms, which affects in problems with walking, (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2011).
Huntington’s Disease is a dominant, autosomal, neurodegenerative disease that results from excess CAG repeats on the human chromosome 4. These CAG repeats code for a protein named Huntingtin, and patients of Huntington's Disease have a mutated form of it. Symptoms begin to appear in one’s middle ages and continue to progress over a span of about 20 years. It leads to loss of mental ability and muscle coordination, as well as increasing one’s vulnerability to depression. Those who develop Huntington’s Disease cannot be cured, but there is treatment to reduce the mental and physical effects. Genetic advancements in both testing and treating Huntington’s Disease have provided hope for families with a history of this disease, but it has
Envision a life that is completely normal, walking and talking, running and playing, driving. However, then life begins to change. The person starts to stutter when speaking. Walking becomes difficult as the person trips over their own feet with jerky movements and even falls. Eventually, the ability to walk disappears and a wheelchair is the norm. No more running, playing, or driving. Balance and memory problems will appear in due course. Subsequently, even eating may be complicated leading to the possibility of a feeding tube. Loss of physical and mental abilities will progressively become worse. Ultimately, a long-term care facility may be in the future. This is the progression and life of a person with Huntington’s
Many of you may not know much about Huntington’s disease. After reading this paper and the subsequent ones to come, you surely will. According to PudMedHealth.com, “Huntington’s disease is a disorder passed down through families in which nerve cells in certain parts of the brain waste away or degenerate.” This can lead to many different complications to a person’s health. In most cases, the disease’s symptoms develop later in life during a person’s mid thirties-forties. There are also instances where the disease becomes on-set in children or during adolescence. The question that I am writing about is the disease itself ,and which symptoms affect you the worst. The reason I chose to write about this disease is because I have always been
Gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. It is also composed of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Huntington's disease is caused by abnormal genes in the nerve cells in the brain. In the global population Huntington's disease evaluates that for every 100,000 people 5-10 people are going to have Huntington's disease. In the United States, 30,000 are affected by Huntington's disease and 150,000 people have 50 percent risk of evolving this disease. Moreover, in middle east countries Huntington's disease is estimated to affect 3-4 people per 100,000. Explaining the history, meaning and how the genes of Huntington's disease inherited helps to realize the disease and its risk.
Huntington’s disease is an inherited disorder of the central nervous system, and the degeneration of nerve cells in the brain, which causes the brain to deteriorate.
Huntington’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes uncontrolled physical movements and mental deterioration. Huntington’s destroys the brain leading to changes in personality and even cognitive functioning. A faulty gene is responsible for this disease. This faulty gene generates a malformed protein which is accountable for the immediate damage. This damage leads to a slow decline and eventually death. Unfortunately there is no cure and only minor treatments to manage
For our gene and protein lab, my group decided and I to research the deadly, yet rare, disease, known as Huntington's disease. Huntington's disease is an extremely rare condition when your nerve cells in your brain break down overtime. Also, “HD” has a treatment that could aid someone, but it unfortunately cannot be cured. Huntington’s Disease typically begins when someone is thirty or forty years of age and can last years to a life time.
Named after George Huntington, Huntington’s Disease is a hereditary neurodegenerative disease. It “causes the death of specific neurons in the brain, leading to jerky movements, physical rigidity, and dementia (First).” The mutation was first mapped to chromosome 4 in 1983, becoming the first disease gene to be mapped using DNA polymorphisms (First). In 1993, a group of investigators found the gene that causes Huntington’s Disease. It is caused by a mutation in a gene located on chromosome 4 (Mennitto). The gene contains an abnormally large number of CAG (Mennitto). The gene may lengthen when passed from father to child, but not mother to child (Mennitto).
Huntington’s Disease (HD) is defined as being a progressive neurodegenerative condition which can be characterized by cognitive, motor and behavioral problems (Mestre, Ferreira, Coelho, Sampaio, & Costa, 2009). It is an autosomal dominant disease, meaning that if a child’s parent is affected by HD, there is a 50% chance the child will be affected as well. Huntington’s disease (first known as Huntington’s Chorea) was first documented and studied in 1872 by George Huntingon, MD (Aubeeluck & Wilson, 2008, p. 146; Bourne, Clayton, Murch, & Grant, 2006). Almost 150 years later there is still little known about this disease, which contains no cure in sight.
The first part of the article is about Huntington’s Disease. This is a genetic disease that you can not do anything about, even if you know you have it. The disease can spread genetically to your children and generations past them. The next part is about family concerns. Family around you might start to ignore you, and you will start to help problems socially. These conditions can cause guilt and depression for many people. There are also privacy concerns about knowing your genes.