Dr. Kathleen Shannon, a neurologist with a genetic testing center for Huntington's disease, lists the range of symptoms the disease commonly causes. Victims, who span all races and ethnicities, may show any combination of symptoms, complicating diagnoses and symptomatic treatments.
Common symptoms fall into three categories.
Cognitive difficulties, which tend to show up later on in the disease, can involve memory, mental flexibility, fluency of thought, organization, an inability to make a mental strategy, and poor communication. The latter can be especially frustrating to the patients exacerbating other areas. There are now 25,000 to 30,000 people afflicted with the disease in the United States. An additional 150,000 are at risk. Research on the disease, Shannon explains, involves several areas of study.