Huntington Disease – Symptoms and treatments

Huntington disease (HD) is caused by mutation of a gene on the autosomal chromosome number 4. It is a familial disease in which a child of an HD parent has a chance of 50% of having HD. A person who carries the HD gene may have an outbreak of symptoms in any ages. The early symptoms involve irritability, mood swings, difficulty in learning new things or making a decision. When the disease progresses, cerebral cortex is damaged, and the patients may exhibit difficulty in thinking or unable to perform any stepwise tasks; for example, the patient is unable to feed himself or herself. To diagnose HD, a physician can screen for the HD mutant in a person’s genome in addition to observing his or her medical history, neurological test, and other lab tests.

Treatments

To date HD is an incurable disease. While many research are looking for ways to cure HD, the goals of treatment are alleviating the symptoms, preventing complications, and providing support to the patient and those who are involved with the patient. Many types of prescriptions such as antipsychotics, antidepressants, tranquilizers, mood-stabilizers, and botulinum toxin are used to control the patients’ emotions and to help their movement problems. The symptoms and drug treatments are listed below.

*** Symptoms: hallucinations, delusions, violence *** Drugs: Antipsychotics: haloperidol, chlorpromazine, olanzapine (contraindicated if patient has dystonia)

*** Symptoms: depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior *** Drugs: Antidepressants: fluoxetine, sertraline hydrochloride, nortriptyline

*** Syptoms: anxiety, chorea *** Drugs: Tranquilizers: benzodiazepines, paroxetine, venlafaxin, beta-blockers

*** Symptoms: mania, bipolar disorder *** Drugs: Mood-stablizers: lithium, valproate, carbamazepine

*** Symptoms: dystonia, jaw clenching *** Drugs: Botulinum toxin

Antioxidants may delay Huntington Disease Progression

Huntington disease is caused by degeneration of the brain mainly at the striatum and, when the disease progresses, at the cortex. One of the degradation processes is caused by oxidative stress in which the human body, on the other hand, has antioxidative enzymes reponsible for healing the damaged site of the brain. A group of scientists at the Spain Institute of Neuropathology have studied proteomic analysis of postmortem specimens of patients died from HD and patients died from non-HD related causes. They suggest in Free Radical Biology and Medicine, September 2008 issue, that using antioxidants and avoiding oxidative stress would delay progression of Huntington disease.