Progeria
By Jake Royster
What is it?
Progeria is a fatal genetic disorder that is very rare. It causes young children to appear really old. The name Progeria comes from the Greek, meaning 'prematurely old', which is basically Progeria.
Progeria Heredity and Genotype
Progeria is an autosomal dominant trait, and is found on chromosome one. Due to Progeria patients dying early, all cases are caused by random mutations.
Progeria Diagnosis & Frequency
With mutations as the sole cause of Progeria, there are very few people diagnosed with it, and there is only about one hundred living Progeria patients on the earth at the same time. To truly considered having Progeria, you have to take a DNA test, but a doctor can easily note irregularities in their appearance that are similar symptoms of Progeria.
Symptoms of Progeria
Common symptoms of Progeria are baldness, swollen veins, absence of eyebrows and eyelashes, shrunken chin, premature heart disease, narrow chest, swollen and stiff joints, and age spots.
Progeria Cure and Treatment
Sadly, there is no cure to Progeria, but patients may take pain relievers to take off pain, and regular checkups to make sure nothing too severe is wrong. (Think about it like old age. There is no cure for it, but there are treatments that might prolong life, but doesn't necessarily cure it.) The person on the left is the oldest person ever with Progeria- he lived to the whopping age of 26.
Progeria Prognosis
Life is very hard for children with Progeria, and most of them die at an average age of fourteen do to their arteries clogging up, or dying of 'old age'. Life with Progeria is very hard, kids are in constant pain and have the dreadful thought that they could die today. However, most Progeria patients have above average intelligence.