It is unique biologically as it may occur as a sporadic, hereditary or transmissible disease. It is very rare and CJD usually has its onset at about age 60. People with CJD, which may be mistaken for mild depression at first, suffer many symptoms.
These symptoms include memory loss, speech problems, and personality changes, jerky movements, and seizures. CJD can be fatal within months or even weeks but in some cases people survive for a year or more.
There are a number of subtypes of CJD, classified in part accordingly to etiology, but all forms of CJD are progressive and fatal neurological disease, with no effective treatment for the underlying disease process.
CJD occurs in about one person for every million people worldwide, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. About 300 cases of CJD are identified each year in the United States.
CJD is named after two German neurologists, Alfons Jakob and his professor Hans Creutzfeldt, who are credited with its recognition in the early 1920s, although it is likely that CJD had existed as an uncharacterized dementia for much longer.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)
