Česky
In the Rehabilitation Centre of the Beroun Hospital there is a research within the framework of a unique project in the Czech Republic, focused on the possibilities of treatment of patients with Huntington's disease. We collaborate with the Centre for Extrapyramidal Disorders of the Neurological Clinic and the Centre for Clinical Neurosciences of Charles University and the 1st Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital in Prague. The research is supported by a grant from Charles University and grants from IGA and Prvouk.
Huntington's Disease (HD) is an incurable hereditary neurological disease that in the final stage inevitably leads to devastating disability of the individual, his/her full disability with the need for 24-hour care of the environment, and unfortunately to death. "The disease is manifested by movement control disorders, uncontrollable, purposeless movements, impaired stability, gait, memory, orientation, and the ability to perform any work, including basic daily living and hygiene habits. Problems with swallowing, speech, metabolic changes leading to extreme wasting, mood swings and personality changes, often greatly complicating interpersonal coexistence, and other problems are added. At present, there is only limited and temporary drug therapy, mainly aimed at controlling symptoms; there is no known cure for the disease as such. Despite the fact that rehabilitation is mentioned in the literature worldwide as the main method of influencing the functional state of patients and the development of motor disability, valid scientific studies on this issue are minimal even abroad, and specific rehabilitation management of patients with HN does not exist," says Ondřej Horáček, M.D., Ph.D., the head of the Rehabilitation Centre, about this serious diagnosis.
The aim of the above-mentioned project, which has been running for some time at the Rehabilitation Centre in Beroun and which is coordinated by the centre's physician Libuše Brabcová, MD, is to shed light on the possibilities of rehabilitation treatment in the therapy of patients with the disease and to create a specific rehabilitation programme that could be used by other departments. Patients with HN in Beroun are treated by a number of workers - doctors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, speech therapists, but of course also nurses and orderlies.
The preliminary results obtained so far in the project are promising, especially in the area of gait and stability and prevention of falls, which are a frequent and serious complication in Huntington's disease patients. In December 2015, MUDr. L. Brabcová presented her experience and results at the international conference of the European Society of NeuroRehabilitation in Vienna (European Congress of NeuroRehabilitation 2015). In May and June 2016, the aforementioned doctor plans to present at the XXIII Congress of the Society of Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine in Luhačovice and also at the 20th International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Extrapyramidal Disorders in Berlin.
