Ah, spring has finally sprung. Plants are blooming, trees are budding, and the weather is warmer. As a result, my wife, Jill, and I recently decided to take advantage of the beauty exploding around us, along with the good weather, by spending the day in the nation’s capital, close…
Psychosis causes a person to lose a degree of contact with reality. According to the National Health Service, three main symptoms are linked to a psychotic episode: hallucinations, delusions, and confused and disturbed thoughts. As a 2019 Huntington’s Disease News article noted, “Psychosis is defined as experiencing hallucinations…
A type of brain nerve cells called layer 5a pyramidal neurons — especially those projecting into the striatum, a brain region greatly affected in Huntington’s disease — are lost early in the course of Huntington’s, a study found. Excessive CAG repeats in the HTT gene, the cause of…
From time to time, my son-in-law, René, will ask me “when you were young” questions, usually to poke good-natured fun at me. Here’s what I mean: I was born in 1964, but if you heard what he’s asked me — such as, “Did you use an abacus instead of…
Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder, has affected several generations of my family. So far, it’s taken the lives of my dad, grandad, and great-grandmother. I tested negative for Huntington’s disease in the summer of 2023. In the early stages of my dad’s disease, my friends and I…
Scientists at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) have mapped onto a genetic database nearly a million tandem repeat (TR) expansions — head-to-tail copies of short DNA sequences — to better understand how they’re linked to several human diseases, including Huntington’s. This work, the team says, may provide “critical…
The United Kingdom’s Mental Capacity Act, introduced in 2005, states that a person is unable to make a decision if they cannot do one or more of the following: “Understand the information relevant to the decision “Retain that information for long enough to make the decision “Use or weigh…
Cariprazine, an oral medication approved for schizophrenia, may ease some motor symptoms people with Huntington’s disease experience across different stages of the condition, a small study suggests. How cariprazine works in Huntington’s still isn’t clear, but researchers think it may balance out dopamine levels when they’re too high, as…
Recently, as I sat on the couch enjoying the sound and smell of my wife Jill’s tea brewing, I thought about life’s simple pleasures. Normally, Saturdays are packed with all the chores and errands we didn’t do during the week, but not this day. The only thing on our agenda…
“My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically.” — Stephen Hawking Huntington’s disease affected both my dad’s and my brother Gavin’s…
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