Sunday, December 2, 2012

Genetic Counseling and Current Issues

Genetic counselling entails analyzing family medical histories to assess the chance of inherited disease; explaining, coordinating and interpreting genetic tests; providing information about the condition's features, treatment and inheritance; helping people make decisions about reproductive and treatment options and guiding and supporting them as they deal with the impact of the condition or risk on their life. Genetic counselors are allied health professionals who have graduate education in medical genetics and the psycho-social and ethical aspects of genetic disease, as well as specialized training in counselling. This program is found in 17 countries and also four continents. Genetic counselors work not only in a variety of clinical settings, but also in public health and policy; diagnostic laboratories; research; biotech, pharmaceutical and Internet companies. Any person who may have a genetic condition, has a family history of an inherited disease, or has



other risk factors for a genetic condition or birth defect may benefit from seeing a genetic counselor. If a person's family history indicates the possibility of an inherited disease, their doctor may give them a referral. Some pregnant women may also be referred to genetic counselors to receive counseling about the risks of birth defects or for help in interpreting test results. One of the main issues dealing with genetic counseling is the most debatable subject of abortions. Now the genes of a new born can be found easier then ever before. The fact of finding out the probability of many dieses and other heath factors that the newborn may have gives the mother the reason to do multiple specific tests. Which then the mother now knows the problems and the probability of diese in the child and if she wants an abortion to prevent this. Many genetic services as those relating to genetic testing and counseling, will be with helping more individuals deal with medical information that affects their health directly, as opposed to affecting primarily the health of their offspring.

Posted by at
Labels: , ,

3 comments:

  1. kenned56December 5, 2012 at 1:57 AM

    I think genetic counseling is a very interesting field and can have really profound effects on predicting certain diseases. It would be interesting to see what the success rates that genetic counseling had for predicting these diseases. Also, it would be cool to see whether or not this can be used to predict very serious diseases, such as cancer, in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  2. battersjDecember 10, 2012 at 8:14 AM

    Genetic counseling is a great field. It can help to put people with family history of diseases at ease. Genetic counseling can also help to prepare families for what a possible offspring may inherit and what those probabilities are. The only bad thing is you can't tell much without someones family history.

    ReplyDelete
  3. dzialowskiDecember 11, 2012 at 10:08 AM

    I really admire genetic counselors. It is a very tough job to be the one to break this kind of news to a family, and go through it day after day. But they are very good at it, and it is not always the end of the world, many times there are a ton of different steps that can be taken to fix the problem at steak, and the genetic counselor can go through all of them with you and help you find which solution is best or you and your family!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)