Woody Guthrie - Huntington's

Woody Guthrie was a singer, artist, and social activist who was diagnosed with Huntington's around his 40's. Before his diagnosis, he had some symptoms like violent outbursts and volatile behavior. In Huntington's disease, there are motor, cognitive and psychiatric symptoms. I found this disease very interesting because of how much it impacts daily life. In Woody's case, his biggest concern was still being able to travel and being able to write music. Something an OT can help work on with HD is keeping a routine schedule because if following a planned schedule, there are less likely chances of outburst or behavior getting too out of control. Woody's case however was very challenging because being a singer, musician and traveler, you can imagine that his life didn't really follow a schedule. From this case study, my biggest take away was realizing how much this disease affects one's life.