Part of a genetic counselor’s job is to take a family history. This record of the family’s medical history typically goes back for at least three generations. It is designed to track disease through a family, providing enough information from each generation to help...
Twenty years ago, carrier screening options were simple. Genetic counselors were to offer screening tests from a handful of reference laboratories based on what the patient believed their ethnicity to be: Caucasians were screened for cystic fibrosis, African-Americans...
With the growing awareness of the importance of family history information as well as increasing access to genetic testing, more people are finding out that they may be at risk for a genetic disease. Sometimes, this knowledge comes before that individual is ready to...
Individuals who have family members with certain medical conditions may benefit by seeing a genetic counselor to explore the risk to develop the condition themselves as well as pass it on to their children. One part of the consultation will usually be to record the...
Autosomal recessive is a pattern of inheritance. Genetic diseases are caused by changes, also called mutations or pathogenic variants in genes that cause the gene not to work properly. We inherit two copies of each gene from our parents; one from our mothers and the...
