According to the findings of a recent study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry psychiatric manifestations develop more often than previously thought during Huntington’s disease prodrome. Moreover, it appears that symptoms increase with disease severity.
Early features of Huntington’s disease can include mood swings, personality changes, fidgety movements, irritability and altered behavior, although these are often attributed to something else and so are overlooked. To better understand the progression of psychiatric symptoms in patients carrying the Huntington’s disease mutation the study, entitled “Longitudinal Psychiatric Symptoms in Prodromal Huntington’s Disease: A Decade of Data,” by Dr. Jane Paulsen, from the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, used longitudinal assessment measures for up to 10 years of psychiatric indicators from the Symptom Checklist–90–Revised (SLC-90-R) in 1,305 participants (1,007 patients carrying the Huntington’s disease mutation, 298 controls without it; 1,235 companions were also assessed).
Read more about the study and its findings at huntingtondiseasenews.com