Huntington’s Disease
My dad past away from Huntington’s Disease, which is a neurodegenerative brain disease, a silent killer that not too many people know about and I have a 50-50 chance of inheriting the gene.
Typically symptoms affect everyone differently but the first thing is the bodies nervous system causing them to move or shake, due to cognition failure. 35-45 is the average age where the brain starts decreasing in function, with the loss of motor skills, driving a car & physical exercise etc. Mental health also deteriorates as dad was aggressive at times, but it wasn’t him, it was HD. He began looking after us but he got worse we had to look after him, and he went into a home quite rapidly and didn’t make it past 52.
I recently went to a HD conference in Auckland and discovered they have the best brain bank in the world, where they test over 400 brains, and the got a lot of funding and community support, so there has been a big progression in mitigating the symptoms but so far there is no cure. Also if you’re positive already and want to have kids you can stop it at the embryo, so it will be a smaller problem in a few generations.
I’ve been noticing some very minor symptoms or shakes, in the afternoon during work and potentially looking to get the test, which includes a blood test and a mental health examination. Due to covid this takes 6 months to 1 year and now I need to find a work life balance, but it may just the stress from my pressure cooker job.
The three images opposite, show the contrast between his healthy stage and deteriorating stage.