Huntington's disease

Symptoms:

• Movement disorders
• Involuntary jerking or writhing movements (chorea)
• Muscle problems, such as rigidity or muscle contracture (dystonia)
• Slow or abnormal eye movements
• Impaired gait, posture and balance
• Difficulty with the physical production of speech or swallowing
• Cognitive disorders
• Difficulty organizing, prioritizing or focusing on tasks
• Lack of flexibility or the tendency to get stuck on a thought, behavior or action (perseveration)
• Lack of impulse control that can result in outbursts, acting without thinking and sexual promiscuity
• Lack of awareness of one's own behaviors and abilities
• Slowness in processing thoughts or ''finding'' words
• Difficulty in learning new information
• Psychiatric disorders
• Feelings of irritability, sadness or apathy
• Social withdrawal
• Insomnia
• Fatigue and loss of energy
• Frequent thoughts of death, dying or suicide:
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder, a condition marked by recurrent, intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors
• Mania, which can cause elevated mood, overactivity, impulsive behavior and inflated self-esteem
• Bipolar disorder, or alternating episodes of depression and mania