Huntington's Disease of Childhood: Awareness and Prevention

Aamir Jalal Al Mosawi

Advisor in Pediatrics and Pediatric Psychiatry Children Teaching Hospital of Baghdad Medical City, Head, Iraq Headquarter of Copernicus Scientists International Panel Baghdad, Iraq

*Corresponding author: Al-Mosawi AJ, Advisor in Pediatrics and Pediatric Psychiatry Children Teaching Hospital of Baghdad Medical City, Head, Iraq Headquarter of Copernicus Scientists International Panel Baghdad, Iraq, Email: almosawiaj@yahoo.com

Citation: Al-Mosawi AJ (2020) Huntington's Disease of Childhood: Awareness and Prevention. J Neuropsychiatr Neurodis, 2(2);1-2.

Copyright: Â© 2020, Al-Mosawi AJ, This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ABSTRACT

Huntington disease is fatal, autosomal-dominant neurodegenerative disorder of adults. During the 1960s, the rare occurrence of childhood and adolescent forms of Huntington disease was increasingly recognized. Pediatric Huntington disease typically has different presentation when compared with adults. Early diagnosis and symptomatic treatment may contribute to enhancing the quality of life of affected patients. However, most clinicians are unaware that Huntington disease can present during childhood and adolescence, and the diagnosis can be delayed. Therefore, appropriate genetic counseling are commonly not witnessed. Pediatric Huntington disease has not been reported before in Iraq. The main aim of this paper is to describe the first case of this disease in Iraq. This case emphasizes the importance of awareness of the disease to help in providing early genetic counseling which may contribute the possible prevention of further cases in the affected family.

KEYWORDS: Pediatric Huntington disease, Iraq, Awareness

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