2001 Articles

Cognitive Correlates of Obsessive and Compulsive Symptoms in Huntington’s Disease

Anderson, Karen E.; Louis, Elan D.; Stern, Yaakov; Marder, Karen S.

OBJECTIVE: The authors’ goal was to examine the frequency and type of obsessive and compulsive symptoms in Huntington’s disease. METHOD: The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale was used to assess obsessive and compulsive symptoms in 27 patients with Huntington’s disease. The neuropsychological test performance of the 14 patients with at least one obsessive symptom and the seven patients with at least one compulsive symptom was compared with the performance of the patients without such symptoms. RESULTS: More than half of the patients with Huntington’s disease endorsed obsessive or compulsive symptoms on the Yale-Brown scale. Patients with obsessive or compulsive symptoms showed significantly greater impairment on neuropsychological tests measuring executive function than those without such symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Basal ganglia pathology in Huntington’s disease may contribute to production of obsessive and compulsive symptoms and to executive performance deficits in these patients.