Hannah Barnes

• Bsc (Hons) Psychology
• Mindfulness Meditation Groups for Huntington’s disease Patients

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a progressive genetic disorder affecting cognition, emotion and movement often manifesting between 30-50 years old. Investigating ways to provide HD patients with support and coping mechanisms is imperative as no cure exists. This study is the first to explore the use of a Mindfulness based-intervention (MBI) as a potential therapy in a HD population. Mindfulness is a meditation focusing on awareness of the present moment, non-judgmentally. It has been found in Alzheimer and Parkinson’s populations to reduce stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms. More recently MBIs have been shown to improve functions such as attention, memory and emotional control. HD patients could benefit from these improvements and so there is reason to assess the use of a MBI. The aims are to develop a HD adapted MBI protocol, investigate potential benefits by using a range of pre and post intervention measures and assess feasibility of the programme.
 
Funding source: Newcastle University (undertaken at Monash University, Australia)

Supervisor: Prof Julie Stout