Genetic counseling

Abstract

Genetic counseling is an expanding field in the age of genomic medicine. Genetic counselors provide services to clients across the lifespan, from preconception counseling to prenatal diagnosis, the diagnosis of newborns or pediatric genetic disorders, and the diagnosis of adults with inherited predisposition to diseases such as cancer, presenile dementia, psychiatric disorders, and heart disease. The approach to genetic counseling involves assessing family, medical, and environmental history to determine disease risk; assisting in genetic testing, diagnosis, and disease prevention and management; and offering psychosocial and ethical guidance to help patients make informed, autonomous health care and reproductive decisions. Genetic counseling focuses on complex issues related to the value of genetic testing, and on medical interventions and health care practices that have varying degrees of efficacy and success. The traditional dogma that genetic counseling must be nondirective is being challenged in favor of a psychosocial approach that emphasizes shared deliberation and decision making between the counselor and the client. © 2006 Humana Press Inc.