Dementia refers to neurodegeneration that results in loss of mental abilities. Neurodegeneration is the loss of mental abilities that can be caused by brain damage and/or neuron death. For this reason, dementia is common in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease. While Huntington's Disease (HD) is commonly though of as a motor disorder, cognitive symptoms can be present which can progress to dementia. To learn more about some of these cognitive symptoms, click here. Interestingly, many cognitive symptoms appear in HD patients before motor deficits appear.
Although a formal clinical diagnosis of HD depends on unequivocal signs of motor impairment, recent research has shown the importance of neuropsychological analysis and the evaluation of dementia in determining the condition of HD patients. There are several tests that clinicians administer to evaluate a patient's cognitive abilities and degree of dementia. For physicians, it is important for these tests to recognize the subtle differences between different neurodegenerative diseases, particularly HD, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's Disease, which show similar cognitive symptoms.
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