Huntington disease will most likely lead to a significant decrease in cognitive functioning, which could affect attention, learning, and planning capabilities. The following is a list of possible cognitive impairments:
Short-term memory retrieval impairment can be explained by example: after an individual with Huntington's disease is presented a list of words, they would be able to more easily select the words out of a group rather than repeat back the words verbatim. Also, the relatively constant rate of forgetfulness exhibited by patients with Huntington's disease should not be confused with forgetfulness seen by patients with Alzheimer's disease. Unlike Huntington's patients, Alzheimer's patients have more of a tendency to forget all.
Back to Huntington's Disease Home Page