Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease

The above image is an actual brain with Creutzfeldt Jakob Diseae.  Notice the large holes throughout the tissues!!

Creutzfeldt Jakob disease is a degenerative brain disorder that can lead to dementia and eventually death.  This disease can resemble some dementia like brain disorder.  However this disease will progress more rapidly than any type of dementia.  In the 1990's this disease was on the rise in the United Kingdom.  Individuals developed a form of this disease callled variant CJD.  It was discovered that cattle had also contracted a form of this disease and the individuals most like contracted CJD from eating diseased meat.  Fortunatly this disease is very rare with only one out of 1 million people being diagnosed each year. 

CJD has numerous symptoms and is therefore hard to diagnose; symptoms include:  personality changes, anxiety, depression, memory loss, impaired thinking, blurred vision, insomnia, difficulty speaking and swallowing, and sudden jerky movements.  As the disease progresses the mental symptoms may progress.  CJD will usually cause the patient to go into a coma and heart failure, respitory failure, pneumonia, or other infections will likely be the actual cause of death.  The estimated survival time is about 7 months. 

CJD is caused by a varing group of both human and animal diseases known as transmissible spongiform encepholopathies.  The disease name comes from the multiple holes that form in brain tissue during the progression of the disease.  CJD is transmitted three ways.  The majority of cases occur spontaneously with no clear reason for its development; this accounts for most of the diagnosed cases.  Genetic mutation can also cause this disease as well as family history.  This accounts for 5-10% of the cases.  Lastly, individuals can be exposed by contamination of other human body tissue, or by eating contaminated meat from cattle with "mad cow disease".