Citation

Heemskerk AW, Roos RAC. PLoS Curr. 2012; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/currents.RRN1293

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Huntington's disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative autosomal dominant disease characterized by choreatic and hypokinetic movements, disturbed behaviour, and cognitive decline. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death, followed by cardiovasculair diseases. It has been suggested that choking is the causative underlying factor for pneumonia in HD. As a detailed specification of the type of pneumonia has never been performed, we analyzed the records of our Brain Bank containing 224 cases to determine the exact cause of death and type of pneumonia. The conclusion is that the majority (86.8%) of our HD patients where the cause of death could be identified died from aspiration pneumonia.

Language: en

Keywords

human; suicide; female; male; asphyxia; shock; cause of death; death; article; major clinical study; disease classification; euthanasia; lung embolism; sepsis; dysphagia; cardiovascular disease; neurologic disease; heart disease; medical information; aspiration pneumonia; airway obstruction; pneumonia; Huntington chorea; cachexia; infectious pneumonia