[The home health care experience in a model chronic, degenerative, genetic pathology: Huntington's disease]

Home assistance has recently received wide approval among the facilities provided to the individuals suffering from chronic-degenerative diseases. This mode of caring seems to offer both the opportunities to reduce costs and to allow the affected individual to live in a familiar environment. The increasing relevance of genetic diseases in the context of the National Health Service suggested the authors to analyze, by means of an ad hoc questionnaire, the experience of home assistance in a group of families with Huntington's Disease (HD). HD is a chronic, degenerative, genetic disease characterized by neurological and/or mental symptoms. The article underlines the peculiar and complex needs of individuals affected by genetic diseases and of their families.