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Huntington’s Disease

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Huntington’s Disease
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 interested in diseases like this that have a huge impact on a person’s life. I would like to hopefully one day find a cure for some of these diseases. According to Huntington-Study-Group.org, “about 30,000 people in North America have HD, and another 150,000 are ‘at risk’ for inheriting the illness because they have (or had) a parent with HD.” As you can tell by the numbers, this disease is not very common. Still, I would hate to ever be diagnosed with this disease or even find out that someone I know has been diagnosed with it. One of the main symptoms of this disease from the cognitive perspective is that it gives a person “difficulties in mental flexibility so that it may become hard for the person with HD to switch quickly from one mental task to the other.” This makes it hard for a person to think out even the smallest of tasks. Next, we look at this disease from the movement perspective. With all of the mess going on with a person’s brain with HD, it is easy to see why someone might have trouble moving around or making easy, simple movements. As I mentioned earlier, Huntington’s disease causes certain parts of a person’s brain to degenerate and waste away. According to Huntington-Study-Group.org, “a person with HD


Cited: “Education - A Huntington Disease Overview.” Huntington Study Group. Web. February 23, 2012. “NINDS Huntington 's Disease Information Page.” National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Aug. 13, 2010. Web. Feb. 23, 2012. Sheth, Kevin. “Huntington’s disease.” PubMed Health. A.D.A.M Medical Encyclopedia, April 30, 2011. Web. Feb. 2
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