Assessment of simple movements reflects impairment in Huntington's disease.

Clinical rating, caudate atrophy, disturbed movement performance, neuropsychological testing, and age-related genetic disease load (CAG index) are tools that reflect impairment after onset of Huntington's disease (HD). Objectives were to compare scored HD symptoms, results of neuropsychological testing and of instrumental measurement of simple motion sequences, assess caudate atrophy and CAG index, and investigate their relation to each other in 131 subjects of various HD stages. Caudate atrophy and CAG index significantly increased in advanced HD patients.

Assessment of complex movements reflects dysfunction in Huntington's disease.

Results of various complex instrumental tools, rating scales, caudate atrophy and CAG repeat length may reflect the severity of Huntington's disease (HD). A simple assessment task for dysfunction due to disease is the standardized, computer based performance of peg insertion. The objectives of our study were to compare scored HD symptoms, computed bicaudate diameter ratio (BDR), age related genetic disease load (CAG index = [CAG-35.