{"id":59,"date":"2019-04-17T22:35:34","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T22:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/?page_id=59"},"modified":"2025-02-18T20:56:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T20:56:33","slug":"about-huntingtons-disease","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/what-is-hd\/about-huntingtons-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"About Huntington’s Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"\"<\/h3>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\r\n

What is Huntington’s disease?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Huntington\u2019s disease\u00a0(often referred to as HD) is an inherited, progressive, neuropsychiatric disease \u2013 a brain disorder. The disease affects brain cells,\u00a0which\u00a0lead to changes\u00a0in a\u00a0person’s movement, thinking, and\u00a0mood.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

HD affects both men and women throughout the world. In the United States, up to 43,000 individuals are affected with HD and 123,000 individuals are at 50% risk.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Onset generally occurs\u00a0between 30 and 50 years of age, but it varies among\u00a0individuals and within families, and both earlier and later onset can occur.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Children of a parent with HD have a 50 percent chance of inheriting the HD gene expansion that ultimately results in the disease.\u00a0\u00a0A person who inherits the HD gene expansion will develop symptoms of HD at some time during his or her life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

To learn more about genetics and HD, please see our Genetics 101<\/a> page.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

What are the symptoms of Huntington’s disease?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Symptoms can be described in three categories: movement, cognitive (thinking), and neuropsychiatric.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Movement <\/strong>symptoms may include involuntary movements (chorea) in the arms, legs, face or trunk, as well as fidgety movements, tics and muscle rigidity and\/or tightness.\u00a0 There can also be problems with balance, coordination, swallowing, speech and walking.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Cognitive <\/strong>changes generally occur slowly over time. As symptoms progress,\u00a0people often have\u00a0difficulty performing work-related tasks. They have altered organizational skills and slowed processing of information. They begin to have difficulty with multi-tasking and with\u00a0initiating thoughts and activities. Some individuals are not aware of symptoms in themselves even though they are noticeable to people around them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Neuropsychiatric <\/strong>problems\u00a0include depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, irritability, anger outbursts, delirium, and mania. Some people experience difficulties with psychiatric symptoms and others do not.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Progression of the Disease<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Symptoms\u00a0vary among people and even\u00a0within families. \u00a0Symptoms in a parent generally do not predict symptoms in their adult children.\u00a0 For instance, mood changes and movement symptoms may be pronounced in some people\u00a0and fairly mild in others.\u00a0 The first noticeable symptoms are also variable between individuals. Regardless of\u00a0the symptom profile,\u00a0changes in the brain\u00a0continue to progress over 10-20 years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

While there is no cure to-date, many treatments exist to help manage the symptoms.\u00a0 In addition, scientists are working to develop therapeutic interventions to slow or even stop disease progression.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) <\/a>offers many helpful resources for learning more about HD.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 What is Huntington’s disease? Huntington\u2019s disease\u00a0(often referred to as HD) is an inherited, progressive, neuropsychiatric disease \u2013 a brain disorder. The disease affects brain cells,\u00a0which\u00a0lead to changes\u00a0in a\u00a0person’s movement, thinking, and\u00a0mood.\u00a0 HD affects both men and women throughout the world. In the United States, up to 43,000 individuals are affected with HD and 123,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2865,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-59","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6303,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions\/6303"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hdcoe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}