My mother has a 50/50 chance of growing old. That means I also have a 50/50 chance of having the same outcome as her. Why? Huntington’s Disease, or HD. HD is also known as the family disease because just like having the same eye color as your dad, you can have the same disease as him. This disease runs in the family, meaning that it can be passed down from generation to generation.
In a family, the disease will die off if it happens to never get passed down. For example, the father in the family has HD, he has one kid so that child has a 50% chance of developing the disease. If the child does develop the disease, then his children all have a 50% chance of also developing that disease. But if the father never passes down HD to his only child then the disease can never be passed down again, the disease can not skip generations. Everyone technically has the gene that causes HD but only the people who get passed down the expansion of the gene will eventually develop HD.
More than 200,000 people are at risk of this disease with no cure right now. Huntington’s Disease causes the nerve cells of the brain to deteriorate, leaving the victim with no physical or mental ability. Most people develop systems between 30 and 50 and it is found that women develop symptoms earlier than men do. Symptoms of HD are said to be similar to ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Symptoms include:
- Personality changes
- Forgetfulness
- Involuntary movement
- Slurred speech
- Weight loss
Huntington’s Disease ultimately affects a person’s ability to move, talk and reasoning. The body slowly shuts down and the body is left as just a shell of what the person used to be. My grandma once said that when my aunt passed away that she lost her daughter long before then.
The disease’s symptoms come in three stages, early, middle and last stage being the worst. In the first stage, the personality is what changes the most, depression can occur and mood swings are happening. The middle stage is when the physical affects happen with movement impairment and severe weight loss starts to take place. The last stage is when the victim no longer can care or survive on their own. Huntington’s Disease takes a toll on the whole family involved. The family usually has to all pitch in, taking turns of helping a person survive. The main problem is the choking hazard. The person with HD can no longer make free movements, including being able to swallow, making simple everyday tasks numerous barriers to overcome.
As said before, the only way to develop the disease is for a parent to have HD. Once the person is 18 or older they then have the option to get tested for HD. Everyone has different opinions on getting tested or not. Some find no point in knowing if they are going to develop the disease or not, and some think it would be beneficial to know their fate. Tested or not, there still is no cure and more people should be aware of the toll this disease is causing.
To find out more on the family disease go to http://hdsa.org/what-is-hd/
When I was a little girl I had the dream that I could become anything I aspired to be whether it was a lawyer, doctor, president, or scientist. Women haven’t always been able to go to school and have jobs like men do but there were women that pushed passed those boundaries and taught other women that they can be better than men. Marie Curie was a brilliant scientist born in 1867 and the only education she received was general education and a miniscule amount of scientific training from her father who was a schoolteacher. In 1891, she acquired licentiateships in physics and mathematics and later in 1894 surpassed her husband to become the new Head of Physics. She then gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903 and following her husband’s death she became the Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences where she was the first woman to hold this position. ...
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