The Relationship Between Huntington's Disease and Oral Health

A lot of people might be surprised to know that Huntington's Disease can greatly affect a person's oral health. The reason can be as simple as the uncontrollable jerky movement that makes brushing almost impossible for a patient to severe involuntary muscle spasms, especially on the face, that makes a dental operation or check-up doubly hard perform.

What is Huntington's Disease in the first place? It is a type of hereditary, degenerating brain disorder that causes involuntary, rapid muscle movements such as jerking and twitching and also causes loss in cognitive process and memory which is often referred to as dementia. It was named after Dr. George Huntington, an American who first diagnosed and described the disease in 1872.

Dementia is typically detectable due to the patient's loss of memory, frequent changes in personality and mental disorientation and confusion. Huntington's Disease patients can also frequently feel restless and agitated.

The earliest symptoms of the disease are the uncontrollable muscle movements. Because these patients can have sudden involuntary twitching even in public, the disease has been a cause of embarrassment for these people. This is highly because of the fact that the public is, up to now, not yet properly aware and educated as to what Huntington's Disease is and the implications it gives to people who have it.

The second set of symptoms is the mental type. These are often not quickly diagnosed by medical experts because the family of possible Huntington's Disease patients can sometimes just consider these symptoms as ordinary individual mental shortcomings. These are often both short and long term memory loss, decline in abstract thinking and including psychomotor functions that essentially control the muscles.

Now, people with this disease are understandably at high risk of developing poor oral health. This is primarily due to the fact that they regularly suffer from uncontrollable muscle movements. These patients do not have full of their arms and hands and thus making self-brushing for their teeth virtually impossible. Adding to this are the instances where Huntington's Disease patients can have muscle twitching and spasms on the face and thus losing control of facial movements. This effectively makes brushing even more difficult.

A visit to the doctor is also comprised due to these symptoms. A patient generally has trouble relaxing in the dentist's chair. This is even for a simple and regular dental check up which a Huntington's Disease patient needs due to poor dental hygiene. If an operation is necessary, the dentist will have to make use of equipment and props to keep the patient still so as to avoid any accidents while conducting the procedure.

A person suffering from this disease would require the assistance of another person to help him brush his teeth and even to floss. Hiring a caregiver would be a very wise choice. This is due to the fact that a caregiver is properly trained to assist people with such disabilities or disorders.

Huntington's Disease patients already have too much problems to deal with that are directly related to the disease. Any other side effects of this disorder should then be lessened with the assistance of a family member of that of a health professional. Oral hygiene, while difficult to maintain for such patients, is still manageable with a little diligence and patience.