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Institutional Care for Patients with Huntington's Chorea

Is there a better alternative?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Paul Barczak
Affiliation:
All Saints Hospital, Lodge Road, Birmingham B18 5SD (correspondence)
Ann Pedler
Affiliation:
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham
Sarah Hunter
Affiliation:
Midland Nerve Hospital, Birmingham
Tim Betts
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Despite recent advances in the understanding of Huntington's Chorea, treatment remains, at best, symptomatic and many sufferers end their days in institutional care. A recent survey established the prevalence of Huntington's Chorea in South Wales as 7·65 per 100,000. From this figure, 4,000 or more sufferers of this condition are living in the United Kingdom at present of whom 20% are in hospital or other institutional care. Although some studies have looked in passing at the degree of disability of Huntington's Chorea sufferers in hospital and found it to be considerable, staff and relatives often feel that long stay psychiatric wards are inappropriate or unnecessarily restrictive settings for these patients. This study looks at the disability of Huntington's Chorea sufferers in hospital and other institutions in order to determine the suitability of their placement and to see whether their physical and psychological needs are being met.

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Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1987

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