I was listening to NPR last weekend, and they were doing a story about a physician who killed his father while he had his father on a pass from the nursing home where the father resided with early onset dementia. As soon as I heard that last part, I wondered if this would turn out to be a case of Huntingtons disease in father and son, and sure enough, that was eventually the diagnosis made years later. Huntingtons is a dominant genetic disease, and strange behavior can precede the movement disorder and dementia. Woody Guthrie had this. Anyway, in the radio story, they mentioned that at the time of the murder (not a mercy killing btw) the doctor son was going through or recently divorced. They didn't dwell on this part, but it made me think about the wife. How bewildered she must have been as her previously kind and intelligent husband began to turn into an angry unpredictable person. And how did she feel years later on learning of his disease? Huntingtons is rare... but I suspect the role of lesser brain diseases in divorce is vastly underestimated.
