VIDEO: Pharmaceutical advancements may increase awareness of Huntington's disease

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For many years, patients with Huntington's disease have been misdiagnosed as substance use disorder patients only, or mood disorder patients only, and they've not been recognized for having this multi-dimensional disease that patients with Huntington's disease have. When we talk about Huntington's, we often talk about it being a combination of Parkinson's disease, ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, and Alzheimer's disease, so you can see it affects a wide variety of neurologic functions. And so specialized care for these patients is very helpful and in big need, but if patients are never directed to us at these clinics, it's hard for them to get the comprehensive care that they could benefit from. We're also able to offer advice on family planning, genetic testing and participation in clinical trials, which can be very helpful for patients. So I think being aware of Huntington's disease for providers and the general public, those that may have seen a paragraph about Huntington's disease in medical school, it's going to be a lot of big change in this disease as we see pharmaceutical advancements, and other things that we're doing to help promote the health and wellness of these families.