Posts Tagged ‘Kathleen Edwards died’

Huntington’s disease most often begins in the 30 year-old or 40 year-old, but sometimes people younger than age 20 can attacked by this disease, a very rare case. Kathleen Edwards is a 9 year-old Michigan who has died because of Huntington’s disease. This is a neurodegenerative disease and Kathleen’s mother, Laura, died of the same disease in 2009, according to the CBS news. Kathleen also had pneumonia which is especially bringing more harms for people with Huntington’s disease.

A.D.A.M Medical encyclopedia defines Huntington’s disease as a neurodegenerative disease, where nerve cells waste away in parts of the brain. It’s caused by a genetic defect, where a section of DNA repeat many more times that it is supposed to.

This is the description about how family history of the disease plays into symptoms:
‘As the gene is passed down through families, the number of repeats, the greater your chance of developing symptoms at an earlier age. Therefore, as the disease is passed along in families, symptoms develop at younger and younger ages.’

There’re wide-ranging of the symptoms, from movement problems such as problems swallowing, abnormal eyemovement, to cognitive problems such as problems learning, slowings, problems starting conversations and clumsiness. Mayo Clinic explains the symptoms for the kids may be different from what experienced by adults. Kids may experience seizure and tremor, loss of previously learned skills and behavioral problems.

Kathleen died Wednesday after she suffered from the terminal disease while taunting on facebook by neighbors, Jennifer Petrov, This 33 year-old lived on the same block as Kathleen’s family and presumably began cyber bullying the little girl in late 2010. Petrov now is called as ‘more than an annoying neighbor’. She posted the images of Kathleen, Kathleen’s mother, and Grim reaper above a set of crossbones on her facebook.

She and husband, Scott, also reported by neighbors building a coffin, and then driving their truck with a coffin attached past the Edward home, blowing the horn. Everybody asked about her strange behavior, and Petrov only call it as ‘only for personal satisfaction’ and because it upset the child’s grandmother. Cheryl Dellasega, author and professor of Humanities of Penn State University College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania, tried to analyze this case, “This is probably the most extreme case of cyber-bullying I’ve ever heard of. It’s another way that people can say things that are really cruel that they wouldn’t say to somebody’s face. They are angry, resentful and jealous, and put it up on facebook knowing that the other people will see it.”

Jennifer Petrov recently told her actions were ‘ignorant’ while saying sorry to Edward Family.

So far, there’s no cure for this heredity disease, but Prana Biotechnology is developing PBT2 for the treatment of both Alzheimer and Huntington’s disease.