Angelman Syndrome Essay

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Sam Drafts Khalid Salah Allied Health Sciences Notes on Angelmans Syndrome Angelman syndrome is a ‘neuro-genetic’ disorder that happens in one in 15,000 births. People usually think of Angelman syndrome as autism but it is a lot different. Characteristics of the disorder include developmental delay, lack of speech, seizures, and walking and balance problems. People with Angelman syndrome will require life-long help. Angelman syndrome is a very complex genetic disorder that mostly affects the nervous system. Delayed development becomes noticeable by the age of 6 to 12 months, and other common signs and symptoms usually appear in early childhood. Children with Angelman syndrome typically have a happy, excitable, with frequent smiling, laughter, and hand-flapping movements. Hyperactivity, a short attention span, and a fascination with water are common. Most affected children also have difficulty sleeping and need less sleep than usual. With age, people with Angelman syndrome become less excitable, and the sleeping problems tend to improve. However, people who have this continue to have intellectual disability, really bad speech problems, and seizures throughout their lives. Adults with Angelman syndrome have distinctive facial features that may be described as "coarse." Most cases of Angelman syndrome are not inherited. It usually is not past down from the previous generation or generations before. Other common features include unusually fair skin with light-colored hair and an abnormal side-to-side curvature of the spine. There is no shortage of life expectancy with the Angelman syndrome. The physician Harry Angelman first delineated the syndrome in 1965, when he described several children in his practice as having "flat heads, jerky movements, protruding tongues, and bouts of laughter." Infants with Angelman syndrome appear normal at birth, but often have feeding

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