Huntington's disease has been successfully treated for the first time, doctors tell BBC

[Dear_Prudence]

2. It's been 50 years

Since I worked as a certified nurses' aid, but some residents are seared in my memory. One resident was a farmer, a strong giant of a man, in the late stage of Huntingtons. His dementia left him volatile and sometimes violent. So, unlike other residents, he did not receive the degree of human comfort provided by staff to other residents. I remember his wife visiting, sobbing as she left while walking down the hall. Half of children inherit the disease, so the pain to any family must be unbearable. At the time, I was a young struggling Catholic and I looked it up in the library's Catholic encyclopedia. The view offered for those couples affected by this disease was that birth control was still wrong, so spouses should avoid physical contact. That was when I knew, for the first time, that the Church was not delivering the love, mercy, wisdom of Jesus. This news is heartening, knowing scientists are making some progress, providing some slim measure if hope to families.