The Influence Of Huntington's Disease

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Huntington’s rate of disease progression and duration varies. Most people with Huntington's disease develop signs and symptoms in their 30s or 40s, but the onset of disease may be earlier or later in life. Huntington’s disease has a broad impact on a person’s functional abilities and usually results in movement, thinking and psychiatric disorders.
Huntington's disease is an inherited disease characterized by the progressive loss of brain and muscle function. Huntington's disease (HD) is named after George Huntington, who described it among residents of East Hampton, Long Island in 1872. It is a hereditary neurodegenerative disease. In 1993, a collaborative group of investigators discovered the gene that causes HD. As a result of this discovery it is now possible to diagnose HD with blood or tissue samples (“Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences” 1). …show more content…
As a boy, Huntington often accompanied his father on medical grounds. He also witnessed with a lasting horror the destruction of the disorder. The disorder was referred to in the families that it struck. In addition to his own observations, Huntington was able to draw from almost eighty years’ worth of observations made by his father and grandfather of patients with chorea and their families on Long Island. These factors contributed to Huntington being able to produce his seminal paper at the age of twenty two, about a year after completing his medical degree at Columbia University in New York City. Unlike many other seminal papers Huntington's paper gained quick attention from the medical and scientific communities (“NueroHistory”

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