A male client of a nurse practitioner has an autosomal dominant disorder. The client and his partner are considering starting a family. Which of the following statements indicates the client has an adequate understanding of the genetic basis of this health problem?A)"I know there's no way of accurately determining the chance that my child will inherit the disease."B)"My children who don't have the disease still run the risk of passing it on to their children."C)"I know that new genetic mutations won't occur between generations."D)"I know that a single mutant allele is to blame for the health problem."

Genetic diseases can be defined as alterations in the nucleotide sequence in a part of DNA that alter the structure of a protein and consequently cause anatomical and physiological abnormalities. These diseases are relatively rare, usually affecting few individuals in the population. These diseases can be defined into two main groups: those that affect only one gene and those that affect several. When only one gene changes, we say it is a monogenetic disease; When more than one gene has been affected, we say they are multifactorial diseases, also called polygenic.

Dominant autosomal disorders are mostly monegenic and are passed from parents to children through chromosomal inheritance. Thus, as children receive chromosomes from each of their parents, and chromosomes establish a relationship of dominance and recessivity among themselves, children may even inherit a gene that codes for an autosomal dominant disorder, however, these children may not develop this disorder if this gene responsible for it is on a recessive chromosome.