Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, short-formed as CJD, is a nervous system disorder caused by prion (a kind of virus). Pathology slide of a brain infected by this disease is typically show spongiform encephalopathy, or what was called "bubble and holes".1

Of course taking a slide from a dead body is not something practical to do in terms of diagnosing a patient. Therefore, we should look for signs and symptoms as well as using a correct diagnostic tool to diagnose a case of CJD.

Just to provide a case from website about this disease: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2626364/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt%E2%80%93Jakob_disease

One thing I want to point out is that this disease can cause dementia. The guy can be normal, and you can confuse patient with CJD to Parkinson, like I do. Looking for signs and symptoms as the presence of myoclonus. As such, one should look for a possibility of CJD since myoclonus isn't a part of Parkinson's disease. One characteristic diagnosis we can do is an electroencephalogram showing periodic high amplitude sharp wave http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/archives/indiv.cfm?ID=20060373 As quoted: In sporadic CJD (sCJD), the EEG exhibits characteristic changes depending on the stage of the disease, ranging from nonspecific findings such as diffuse slowing and frontal rhythmic delta activity (FIRDA) in early stages to disease-typical periodic sharp wave complexes (PSWC) in middle and late stages to areactive coma traces or even alpha coma in preterminal EEG recordings.2

The disease can be deadly and there is no treatment for this disease.


1. Edward F. Goljan Rapid Review Pathology 2nd edi. Mosby Elsevier. 2007; 578-579
2. WIESER HG, SCHINDLER K, ZUMSTEG D. Clin Neurophysiol. 2006 [cited 2006 Jan 24] Available from: http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/archives/indiv.cfm?ID=20060373