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Title
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Emotional functioning in Huntington's disease patients and its relation to caregiver experience.
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Identifier
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AAI3325382
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identifier
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3325382
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Creator
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Krch, Denise.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Joan C. Borod
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Cognitive
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Abstract
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Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited, neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressively worsening abnormalities of movement, cognition, and behavior. Although motor symptoms are the clinical hallmark of the disease, cognitive and psychiatric problems may have the greatest impact on quality of life, and yet, relatively little is known about these types of difficulties. Among the studies on emotional processing, all have considered the perceptual aspect, but most have only examined the facial channel. HD individuals have been found to be impaired in emotional perception, with a selective impairment in disgust and fear. Progression of the disease process ultimately places the person with HD in need of caregiving from family and friends, yet little is known about what factors might negatively impact the physical and mental well being of the caregiver. In the current study, an extensive examination of emotional perceptual functioning was carried out, wherein facial, prosodic, and lexical channels were investigated. Within each channel and across channels, the pattern of recognition of individual emotions was considered. Further, factors potentially related to caregiver burden were comprehensively explored.;Participants were 18 early- and middle-stage HD patients and 17 caregivers of HD patients. HD patients were compared to healthy control data on facial, prosodic, and lexical perceptual identification tasks from the New York Emotion Battery (NYEB; Borod, Welkowitz, & Obler, 1992). Group comparisons revealed that HD subjects exhibited emotional perception deficits across all three emotional channels. After accounting for nonemotional perceptual functioning, impairments remained for the facial and lexical channels. HD tends to affect some basic emotions more than others, and does not seem to reflect more widespread deficits or cognitive decline. HD subjects recognized happiness the best, with impairment in disgust and fear recognition. These results are largely consistent across channels, with the exception of the prosodic channel, wherein happiness was also perceived poorly.;There was a significant positive association between the Zarit Burden Inventory (Zarit, Reever, & Bach-Peterson, 1980), and the Huntington's Disease Quality of Life Inventory for Carers (Aubeeluck & Buchanan, 2006). Through utilization of these two measures, various characteristics were found to be associated with increased burden. These were aggression, anger, behavioral disturbances, impaired cognition, impaired mood, lower self care abilities, younger caregiver age, financial strain, and limited social support.;Exploratory analyses revealed that within the HD group, the relationship between the facial and prosodic nonverbal channels was the strongest, with weaker relationships between the nonverbal and verbal channels, which is consistent with previous research for healthy adults and other neurological populations (e.g., Borod et al., 1998, 2000). Greater numbers of CAG repeats were associated with earlier age of onset, also consistent with the literature (The U.S.-Venezuela Collaborative Research Project & Wexler, 2004).
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
