Lumbar Puncture Alleviates Chorea in a Patient with Huntington’s Disease and Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

A 44-year-old African-American male was admitted to our hospital after a suicide attempt. He had depression, poor cognitive function, choreiform movements, difficulty pronouncing words, and difficulty walking. His symptoms had worsened markedly over several months. Chorea lead to genetic testing that confirmed a diagnosis of Huntington Disease (HD). A CT scan of the head showed wider ventricles than is typical of HD. The head CT and gait change suggested normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). Lumbar puncture (LP) led to improved neuropsychologic test scores and walking thereby supporting the diagnosis of NPH. Surprisingly, the LP also led to an 80% improvement of chorea. There are two other reports of an association between HD and NPH. NPH should be considered in HD patients with atypical symptoms, such as the inability to walk or rapid progression, as its treatment may lead to improved cognition, gait, and chorea.

• Publication year

  2009

• Venue

  Behavioural Neurology

• Publication date

  2009-12-23

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3233/BEN-2009-0239PMID 20178144PMCID 5444282
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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