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What You Need to Know About Huntington Disease

Named after Doctor George Huntington, Huntington disease is characterized by a wasting away of the nerve cells in the brain. This disease is largely inherited and causes those afflicted with it to experience uncontrolled physical movements, mental deterioration, and emotional disorders.

Also known as Huntington's chorea, chorea being the Greek word for dance (describing the jerky movements often present in Huntington's disease patients), it is rare for children to be afflicted with Huntington. However, young people diagnosed with Huntington's disease often experience a much more severe and rapid deterioration with its onset.

The symptoms of Huntington's disease include:

Poor and decreased cognitive functioning
Personality changes
Forgetfulness
Involuntary, sometimes jerky movements
Poor coordination or clumsiness
Poor balance
Slurred speech
Trouble swallowing

People with Huntington's disease often appear to have symptoms quite similar to dementia as their cognitive abilities decrease. The jerky, uncontrolled movements associated with Huntington's are also compared to those of people afflicted with Parkinson's disease. Young people who develop Huntington's chorea at an early age are also more prone to seizures.

Huntington disease is passed from parent to child by a lone abnormal gene. Because many people do not know that they have the disease until they are middle aged, the gene is often passed on to offspring before it is ever detected. New experiments with Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) suggest that it may be possible to detect Huntington disease in the brain's pattern before symptoms are presented. If this is the case, doctors hope to one day be able to detect and even begin treatment on patients with Huntington disease at an early age and before they bear children. It is very rare for a person to be diagnosed with the disease without one or both parents having the gene. However, it is possible for a genetic mutation to take place in a male's sperm, which can produce Huntington's disease in an offspring without either parent ever carrying the defective gene.

There is no successful treatment for Huntington's disease and most patients who develop it die within ten to thirty years of its initial onset. People living with Huntington's are sometimes placed in long-term care facilities as their mental and physical disabilities increase.

Tranquilizers, anti-psychotic medications, anti-depressants, speech therapy, and physical therapy are often prescribed for the treatment of symptoms that accompany Huntington's chorea. Medications work largely to calm a patient's mood changes and physical movements associated with Huntington's, but do nothing to cure it. Even when symptoms are calm, the disease continues to diminish the person's normal cognitive, emotional, and physical functioning.

Experimental research with fruit flies given the CoQ10 enzyme (also known as coenzyme Q10) has appeared helpful in slowing the progression of Huntington's chorea. Injections of botulinum toxin to the jaw area have also been successful in stopping muscle clenching that is otherwise involuntary in Huntington's patients. Neither of these, however, is widely used in the treatment of people with Huntington's chorea and anyone considering these treatment options is advised to discuss them with a medical professional first.

It is important for anyone experiencing the symptoms of Huntington Disease to seek medical advice as soon as possible. While there is no specific cure for Huntington's, symptoms can be treated. Also, it's important to note that research is constantly being performed in an effort to understand and treat the progression of Huntington's. While a patient may initially be told that no treatment or cure exists, if a patient accepts this and does not stay abreast of the latest research discoveries, it is very possible that important information helpful to slowing the progression of the disease may be missed.

Physicians like Doctor Veatch Goodman do believe that a cure exists although it has yet to be discovered. The loved ones of a person suffering from Huntington disease may want to keep abreast of who these doctors are and how they are progressing in their research and care of people with Huntington's.

Even with Huntington disease, opting for a healthy lifestyle by targeting holistic health can help a person better cope with their symptoms. Assuring proper rest, a healthy diet as well as developing or nurturing spiritual beliefs, can help calm the fears and stress that many feel at the earliest onset of Huntington's chorea. It is therefore crucial that supportive family members assist the patient in achieving holistic health by daily exercise, spiritual practices and preparing healthy meals (free of processed foods, junk food and foods prepared with processed sugars or artificial sweeteners). In so doing, patients can build stronger bodies, minds, and spirits to help them cope with their diagnosis.

What You Need to Know About Huntington Disease

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