The Effects Of Down Syndrome

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More than 400,000 people live with Down syndrome in the US today. This is about 1 out of 691 live births. The genetic disorder is the result of an extra copy of a chromosome, specifically chromosome 21, which is how it got its other name, Trisomy 21. Scientist John Langdon Down was not the first to discover the disease, but was the first to publish a description accurately of the condition; so, the condition was named after him. Since then, scientists have made major discoveries on identifying the symptoms/ type of disease, making treatments and predicting the most likely outcome of the affected persons (prognosis). Three types of down syndrome have been identified since its discovery: Trisomy 21, trans located Down syndrome and mosaic Down syndrome. Shin, Siffel and Correa (2010) stated that about 95% of people with Down syndrome have Trisomy 21. They also concluded that a small percentage, 3%, of people have trans located Down syndrome. Mosaic Down syndrome affects about 2%. Translocated Down syndrome occurs when an extra or whole part of chromosome 21 is present, but is transloca...

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