Le suicide dans la maladie de Huntington : état actuel des connaissances

Abstract

RésuméLa maladie génétique décrite en 1872 par George Huntington associe dans une même triade symptomatique : des troubles moteurs, cognitifs -évoluant vers une démence corticosous-corticale -et psychiatriques. L'objectif de cet article est de faire une revue de la littérature internationale pour préciser l'état actuel des connaissances en matière de suicide dans la maladie de Huntington. Si les auteurs s'accordent pour estimer une occurrence de l'acte suicidaire quatre fois plus élevée qu'en population générale, il n'a pas pu être retrouvé de facteur de risque spécifique en dehors de l'absence de descendance et de soutien psychologique. AbstractObjectives: In 1872 George Huntington was the first to describe a genetic disease combining three types of disorder symptoms viz.: motor, cognitive -evolving to cortical dementia-and psychiatric. The purpose of this paper is to provide a selective review of the major issues and findings concerning suicide in Huntington's disease. The aim was to understand why patients with Huntington's disease have a higher suicide rate than those suffering from other neuro-developmental diseases.Materials and Methods: The present review is based on a MEDLINE survey of the relevant literature. The terms used in the search were: "Suicide", "predictive genetic testing", "suicidal risk factors" and "suicide attempt" all in combination with "Huntington's disease".All abstracts were read and potentially relevant articles were examined in full. Various other important cross-references were included.Results: Most of the authors found that suicidal occurrence in Huntington patients was four times higher than that in the general population. No specific individual risk factor was found except a lack of offspring and of psychological support.This review also considered the patient's attitude towards predictive genetic testing and its results. Reactions varied from psychological relief to paradoxical suicidal resurgence.Conclusion: This paper emphasizes the need of appropriate psychiatric care for Huntington patients in order to try to prevent suicidal behaviour.

Monitoring Huntington's Disease Mortality across a 30-Year Period: Geographic and Temporal Patterns

“…In some cases, it is accompanied by aggressiveness and anxiety as a consequence of a high burden of disease not only in patients but also in relatives and caregivers [41] . Therefore, support services for both patient and family are vital [42][43][44] .…”