Huntington's disease: review and anesthetic case management

Huntington's disease is a dominantly inherited progressive autosomal disease that affects the basal ganglia. Symptoms appear later in life and manifest as progressive mental deterioration and involuntary choreiform movements. Patients with Huntington's disease develop a progressive but variable dementia. Dysphagia, the most significant related motor symptom, hinders nutrition intake and places the patient at risk for aspiration. The combination of involuntary choreoathetoid movements, depression, and apathy leads to cachexia. Factors of considerable concern to the anesthesiologist who treats patients with Huntington's disease may include how to treat frail elderly people incapable of cooperation, how to treat patients suffering from malnourishment, and how to treat patients with an increased risk for aspiration or exaggerated responses to sodium thiopental and succinylcholine. The successful anesthetic management of a 65-yr-old woman with Huntington's disease who presented for full-mouth extractions is described.