What Is Huntington's Disease?

Symptoms of Huntington's disease usually develop between ages 30 and 50, but they can appear as early as age 2 or as late as 80, depending on the onset (adult or juvenile). Huntington's disease usually causes movement, cognitive, and psychiatric disorders as a result of all the neurons degenerating. The movement disorders that often appear can include both involuntary movements and impairments in voluntary movements. The movement symptoms include: involuntary jerking or writhing movements called chorea, sluggish or abnormal eye movements, muscle problems, such as rigidity or muscle contracture called dystonia, impairments in gait, posture and balance, difficulty with the physical production and act of speech or swallowing, and sudden jerking
The most common psychiatric disorder displayed by people with HD is depression. This isn't simply a reaction to being diagnosed with HD. Instead, the depression appears to occur because of the degneration of the neurons in the brain and subsequent changes that occur in brain function as a result. In addition, other psychiatric disorders experienced may include Obsessive-compulsive disorder, a condition marked by recurrent thoughts and repetitive behaviors, mania, which can cause elevated mood, hyperactivity, impulsivity in behavior and inflated self-esteem, and bipolar disorder, which result in alternating episodes of depression and mania. Furtehrmore, as the disease progresses, the symptoms tend to worsen. As the HD advances, people tend to experience severe chorea, serious weight loss, inability to walk and speak, swallowing problems, which can lead to choking. They become completely dependent on others for care as they continue to loose brain
People who have adult onset start showing symptoms after the age of 20 and/or age 35 to 55. In juvenile HD, the onset is usually before the age of 20. The progression of HD in younger people may be slightly different from that in adults and the symptoms may progress faster. Physical and motor symptoms in JHD include: contracted and rigid muscles that often results in a scissoring gait, walking on toes, clumsiness of arms and legs, noticable changes in fine motor skills such as handwriting, tremors or slight involuntary movements, stiffness of legs, and seizures, which are very common. Behavoiral symtpoms include: loss of previously learned academic or physical skills, significant drop in overall school performance, agression, impulsiveness, and a decline in mental abilities. Almost every part of the brain is affected by HD, but the parts most affected are the basa ganglia and the cerebral cortex. The basal ganglia is group of neurons located at the base of the