Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Also called: CJD
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, degenerative brain disorder. Symptoms usually start around age 60. Memory problems, behavior changes, vision problems and poor muscle coordination progress quickly to dementia, coma and death. Most patients die within a year.
The three main categories of CJD are
- sporadic CJD, which occurs for no known reason
- hereditary CJD, which runs in families
- acquired CJD, which occurs from contact with infected tissue, usually during a medical procedure
Cattle can get a disease related to CJD called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad cow disease." There is concern that people can get a variant of CJD from eating beef from an infected animal, but there is no direct proof to support this.
NIH: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke