Huntington's Disease Society of America

Description

Huntington's Disease (HD) is a devastating, hereditary, degenerative brain disorder that results in a loss of cognitive, behavioral and physical control, and for which, presently, there is no cure and only one FDA-approved treatment for a symptom of HD. HD slowly diminishes the affected individual's ability to walk, think, talk and reason. Symptoms usually appear in an individual between 30 and 50 years of age and progress over a 10 to 25 year period. Cases of Juvenile HD has been diagnosed in children as young as two years of age. Eventually, a person with HD becomes totally dependent upon others for his or her care. More than 30,000 people in the United States are currently diagnosed with HD. Each of their siblings and children has a 50 percent risk of developing the disease, therefore 250,000 are at risk. Although medications can relieve some symptoms in certain individuals, research has yet to find a means of conquering or even slowing the deadly progression of HD.