Huntington's disease

Disease	Injury	Nutrition	Poison

Special Topic	Surgery	Symptoms	Test

Huntington's disease

Alternative Names:

Huntington chorea

Symptoms:

behavior changes
- irritability, moodiness
- restlessness, fidgeting
- antisocial behaviors
- psychosis, paranoia, hallucinations
facial movements, grimaces
need to turn head to shift the gaze
progressive dementia
- loss of memory
- loss of judgment
- speech changes
- loss of other functions (calculating, etc.)
- personality changes
- disorientation or confusion
unsteady gait
progressive development of abnormal (choreiform) movements
- quick, sudden, jerking movements of arms, legs, face, trunk (movement, unpredictable - jerky)
- movement, uncontrolled - slow

Additional symptoms that may be associated with this disease:

In children:

slow movements
tremor
rigidity

Signs and tests:

Examination may indicate progressive dementia and choreiform (chorea-like) movements. Reflexes may be abnormal. The gait is often "prancing" and wide. Speech may be hesitant or enunciation poor.

A head CT scan may show atrophy (loss of tissue), especially of deep brain (caudate) structures, or other abnormalities.

Other tests that may indicate Huntington's disease include:

head MRI scan
PET (isotope) scan of the brain
DNA marker studies (gene studies that indicate the tendency to develop this disorder) may be available

Review Date: 10/26/2001
Reviewed By: Galit Kleiner-Fisman MD, FRCPC, Department of Neurology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

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