A Clinical and Psychometric Study of the Effects of Procaine Amide in Huntington's Chorea

Abstract

Beneficial results with procaine amide in the treatment of Huntington's Chorea were first reported by Goldman (1952). He was led to make an oral trial of the drug after having noticed a patient in the dentist's chair improve following an injection. He found improvement in six cases with the typical syndrome of Huntington's Chorea, of whom four had a positive family history of the disease. The evidence of improvement in these cases was partly based upon clinical observation and partly upon the patient's account of changes in his daily experience, for example, his first case had difficulty in eating, which had led to protests from other customers at a restaurant he had frequented, and this disability is said to have been satisfactorily reduced with the help of the drug.