Huntington’s Disease:
The Union and State governments have yet to include Huntington’s disease in the rare category under the National Policy for Rare Diseases, a demand raised by patients and caregivers in 2024.
- Huntington’s Disease is a genetic condition that affects the cells in your brain.
- It is an inherited condition that causes brain cells to slowly lose function and die.
- If one of your parents has HD, you have a 50% chance of also developing it.
- It affects the cells in parts of your brain that regulate voluntary movement and memory.
- Huntington’s disease affects an estimated 3 to 7 out of every 100,000 people, most often people of European ancestry (biological family comes from European descent).
- Common symptoms include uncontrollable dance-like movements (chorea) and abnormal body postures, as well as problems with behavior, emotion, thinking, and personality.
- Other symptoms may include tremor (unintentional back-and-forth movement in the person’s muscles) and unusual eye movements. The eye movements can happen early in the disease.
- These symptoms get worse over time.
- As HD progresses, you will need constant assistance and supervision because of the debilitating nature of the disease.
- People usually die from the disease within 15 to 20 years of developing symptoms.
- There is no treatment that can stop or reverse HD, but health care providers can offer medications to help with certain symptoms.
