Warning Signs Of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Slurred Speech

Speech difficulties are another early symptom of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. One of the challenges in treating CJD is diagnosing it, as many of the symptoms resemble those of other dementias. The main difference is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease progresses a lot faster and often kills the patient within a year, while most dementia patients can survive for several years. The difficulty is compounded if the patient has atypical symptoms. In February 2018, for example, the online science journal 'Case Reports Critical Care' described a patient with slurred speech, aphasia confusion, headaches, vertigo, and myoclonus. He also had constant, but non-convulsive seizures. The doctors performed a battery of tests to both diagnose his condition and rule out more common conditions like stroke or liver disease.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is rare and is thus not likely to be the first disease a doctor considers when examining a patient who shows symptoms of dementia. Seizures can occur in about fifteen percent of patients with CJD, but they occur as initial symptoms in about three percent of patients. The patient's aphasia, which took the form of trouble finding the right word to describe something, is also a symptom that usually develops later on as the disease progresses.

Vision Problems

In addition to causing fast-acting dementia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease damages the eyes. The patient will experience double vision and hallucinations, and they will eventually go blind. In the Heidenhain variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, vision problems are the first symptom to develop. In addition to hallucinations, vision problems can include the distorted perception of structures and colors, visual anosognosia, and cortical blindness.

Many of the vision problems, like cortical blindness and visual anosognosia, are caused by damage to the brain's occipital lobe. In fact, much of the brain damage in the Heidenhain variant is concentrated in the occipital lobe. Patients with the Heidenhain variant of CJD generally start displaying other symptoms days or weeks after their vision problems have appeared. Like other types of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the disease progresses rapidly.