Understanding the psychiatric prodrome of Huntington disease
- Correspondence to: Dr Adam Rosenblatt Johns Hopkins Hospital, Meyer 2-181, 600 North Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD 21050, USA; arosenb3{at}jhmi.edu
Presymptomatic and early symptomatic gene carriers show greater prevalence of depression and irritability than controls. Depressive symptoms worsen with proximity to onset
Huntington disease (HD) is characterised by a triad of movement disorder, cognitive decline and various psychiatric disturbances. This third feature is especially difficult to characterise, particularly in trying to distinguish emotional symptoms which may be reactive in nature from those which are an essential neuropsychiatric aspect of the disease. Depressive symptoms have been said to occur in presymptomatic individuals as many as 20 years prior to motor onset, but high rates of psychiatric disturbance have also been …
