Hungtington's+Disease

Huntington's Disease

__Overview__: Huntington's Disease is a disease that causes your nerve cells in your brain break down over a period of time. It is inherited from the generations above you and are carried down. The person with the disease will not know until they are middle aged. When they become older, the symptoms form and your ability to move and think will be lost.

__Signs and Symptoms__ : Physical signs and symptoms of huntington’s disease is muscle spasms, muscle cramps, Delayed eye motion, trouble with balancing and posture while walking, and trouble from speaking or swallowing. Cognitive signs and symptoms are difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, verbal outbursts, lack of mental awareness(the inability to know what you can and cannot do), inability to express themselves through words and the ineptitude to learn new things. Psystrike problems are depression, Social isolation, Insomnia (the inability to sleep) tiredness and exhaustion, recurring Suicidal thoughts.

__Genetics:__ The disorder is formed from a dominant allele. To get Huntington's Disease, you only need the one dominant allele to get the disease. There could be two forms of genotypes. The first is homozygous, DD, and the second is heterozygous, Dd. the Homozygous genotype is when both alleles are dominant, giving your children the disease no matter what. For the heterozygous genotype, your child has a 50% chance of receiving the disease, and another 50% of them not. Being this way, you may never know your child has it until they get older and start showing symptoms, but if you have the disease, you won't know if your child received it because of the short amount of time you lived for.

__Distribution__: Distribution of the disease is mostly found in Europe and of people of European decent. It affects 3 to 7 of 100,000 people with european ancestry. It is less common with people of Japanese, Chinese or African Heritage. It also usually only affects people between the ages of 30 and 50.

__Management and Treatment__: Huntington's Disease has no known treatment. Patients who have it, use Palliative Care, an approach to relieve pain, physical and mental stress.

__Miscellaneous__: Huntington’s affected many people in its history one of the most notable people was Woody Guthrie. He was an american folk singer during the early part of the 21st century. Before his daughter was at the age of 3 years old he was diagnosed with it. He died in 1967.

__Society and Culture__: The disease is a incurable illness. If a family member finds out they have it, it causes lots of stress of the members that don't have it, but also for the one with it because they will die middle aged.

__History__: The disease was named after George Huntington when it was discovered in 1872. In 1993 scientists found the gene that causes HD. It is caused by a mutated gene on the fourth chromosome. There is currently no cure for it and the disease is fatal.

__Further Research__: When a person finds out they have Huntington's disease, usually it is near middle age and they will pass soon after. Symptoms start to show at around the age of 40. It causes you to not be able to think straight, and have disabled physical movements. It makes you feel depressed and you feel like you have no energy to do anything. To receive it, one of your parents only needs one copy of it. If they do, you have a 25% chance unless they are homozygous dominant. The symptoms come on slowly and become getting worse over time. The only way you can inherit the disease is if one of your parents has it as well. If you are afraid that you may have it and don't want to pass it onto your children, you can get a genetic test to see if you carry it. =References:= //UpToDate //, www.uptodate.com/contents/huntington-disease-management.

Mandal, Ananya. “Huntington's Disease Society and Culture.” //News-Medical.net//, 11 Sept. 2014, www.news-medical.net/health/Huntingtons-Disease-Society-and-Culture.aspx.

“Huntington's Disease.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 13 June 2017,

“Huntington Disease - Genetics Home Reference.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/huntington-disease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL9Y3P870jU