9. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)
It is a rare, degenerative but fatal brain disorder affecting very a small fraction of persons. The symptoms usually arise at the age of 60 and the person dies within a year. Many researchers believe that this disorder is the result of an abnormal protein known as prion. About 5-10% cases reported in the United States share a genetic basis where this form of dementia is caused by a mutation in the gene for the prion protein. Patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease suffer from the problems associated with muscle coordination, personality changes, impaired memory, judgment making, thinking disability and impaired vision. Other possible symptoms include insomnia and depression. In later stages the persons
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Some disorders unique to children may also cause dementia. Niemann-Pick disease is a type of inherited disorder where specific gene mutations affect metabolism of cholesterol and lipids so excessive amount of cholesterol accumulates in liver and spleen while excessive lipids accumulate in brain. The symptoms include dementia, confusions and problems of learning and memory. The disease is known to affect the young school going children but may also affect teen agers.
Batten disease is also a fatal hereditary disorder of the central nervous system occurring in childhood. The symptoms include formation of lipopigments in body tissues and early symptoms include personality and behavior changes, clumsiness or stumbling. As the disease advances children may experience mental impairment, loss of sight and motor skills, become blind and bedridden. Lafora body disease is a rare genetic disorder responsible for causing progressive dementia and movement problems. The symptoms arise in the early childhood or late teens and are characterized by the presence of Lafora bodies in brain, skin, muscles and liver and death of child within 2-10 years.
Other conditions causing dementia
Doctors have found many conditions that can cause dementia and some symptoms can be reversed with proper treatment. For example, medications can sometimes cause symptoms of dementia. They can be caused either by a
There are several causes of dementia some of them are; a stroke, brain disease, MS, certain medications, shrinkage of the brain, too many opiates over a long period of time and severe alcoholism
Dementia Syndrome is a condition caused by a set of symptoms. These symptoms can include but are not limited to: - memory loss, mood changes, communication difficulties, difficulty understanding or thinking.
There are many different forms of dementia and each has its own cause. Some of the main type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common form of dementia affecting 50%-70% of dementia patients (Alzheimer's australia, 2005). This is a degenerative illness which attacks the brain, this is achieved buy tangles which are in the middle of shrunken brain cells and plaques which eventually cause the brain cells to die meaning information can no longer be recalled or assimilated. There are also other types of dementia which include vascular dementia which is caused by circulation of the blood to the brain, Parkinson’s disease which is a disorder of the
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is a rare and fatal human neurodegenerative condition falling under the category of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) because of having characteristic of spongy degeneration of the brain that it causes and its ability to be transmitted. First it was described in the United Kingdom in March 1996 and it has been connected with exposure to a TSE of cattle known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) sometimes called Classical BSE, having been reported first in 1986 in the United Kingdom.
Dementia is a word used to describe a group of symptoms including memory loss, confusion , mood changes, and difficulty with day-to -day task. There are many causes of dementia wit Alzhaimer`s the most common.
Alzheimer 's disease causes 50% to 60% of all cases of dementia (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). In addition, researchers have found that two other nervous system conditions, Lewy body disease and Pick 's disease, which were originally incorrectly diagnosed as Alzheimer 's, are emerging as major causes of dementia (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). Dementia is considered a late-life disease because it tends to develop mostly in elderly people; as many as half of all people over the age of eighty are suspected of suffering from Alzheimer 's disease (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke).
There are many disease processes that culminate in the onset of dementia; the most common of which is Alzheimer’s disease. The syndrome is frequently associated with a progressive decline in brain function and the associated physical and mental abilities, including memory, language and cognitive function.
Prions are a type of protein found naturally in the brain and other regions of the central nervous system. The diseases associated with
Strangely they has been a case where patients suffered from PMD phenotype of adult onset. The case involved two brothers who had a late onset of the disease at the ages of 29 and 42 years. They suffered the same chronic neurological symptoms including ataxia, dementia and tremor. The two brothers lived up to the ages of 45 and 61, and their post-mortem examinations showed very similar results to those expected from a person who suffered from PMD. The results showed hypomyelination in large parts of white matter, oligodendrites were numerically reduced, and immunhistochemistry showed that PLP reductions in affected white matter. Genetic study did not show any mutations or duplications of the PLP1 gene. It was concluded that "the
Although some kinds of memory loss are very normal in the aging process, the changes that are caused by aging are not that extreme enough to conflict with it. A number of certain diseases and conditions can cause dementia. These conditions and diseases consist of Parkinson’s disease, strokes, brain tumors, blood clots and Multiple Sclerosis, but the most common disease to cause this is Alzheimer’s disease (Crystal, 2009).
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), or Prion diseases, are a group of neurodegenerative disorders which include but is not limited to kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker (GSS) syndrome, and fatal familial insomnia in men, natural scrapie in sheep, goats and mufflons. The first records of neurodegenerative disease which would later be linked to Prions were made about two hundred years ago. It was in the 1950’s it was discovered that Prion disease could be transmitted horizontally, in addition to being inheritable and spontaneous. These findings were sought out by isolated tribes of the New Guinea that were suffering from high prevalence of a particular TST called Kuru. Some additional history of Prion disease dates back to the 1980’s when an increasing number of cows in the UK became infected with Mad Cow Disease also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. This unfortunate epidemic was traced back to a food supplement that was fed to the cows, this supplement contained mean and bone meal from dead sheep. A speculation was then drawn that the BSE had been a result of the sheep that had suffered from scrapie, which is a sheep-specific Prion disease. As a result it was decided by the British government that the banning of animal derived feed supplements. This helped to decrease the disease of cattle which subsequently disrupted the spread of the disease amongst livestock and animals.
Dementia is caused when cells in the brain are damaged. This damage can interfere with the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other. When they don't communicate normally, behavior, thinking, and feelings can be affected. Some possible risk factors are family history (with dementia), head trauma, lower education level, and gender (women are more prone). Alcohol, drug abuse, infections (AID's), cardiovascular disease, and head injuries help in the development of dementia.
This week I chose an article about motor neuron disease because this disease is not a common disease. However, it can severely affect the well-being of our bodies. A motor neuron disease is the deterioration of motor neurons. This disease can be occasional or hereditary; it can affect two types of motors, the Upper motor neurons the Lower motor neurons located in our brain. Moreover, the signs and the symptoms of a motor neuron disease depend on the kind of motor neuron disease a person has. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is one of the most contracted types of neurons disease. Furthermore, there are three types of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis including Sporadic, Familial, and Western Pacific. Among these three types
The Batten disease is characterized as an autosomal recessive, fatal disorder that consists of detrimental effects on the nervous system. Although the disease typically presents during childhood, there are many forms that show signs at various ages. Batten disease, also known as Spielmeyer-Vogt-Sjögren-Batten disease, is named after the British pediatrician who first correlated its symptoms with the disease progression in 1903. This disease is the most common type of a group of disorders called neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses, or NCLs. Although Batten disease originally referred specifically to the juvenile form of NCL (JNCL), the term is now increasingly used by pediatricians to describe all forms of NCL.
CTE is a progressive degenerative disease that is recurring caused by brain trauma and multiple head injuries. The disease attacks the brain through an abnormal protein called Tau which clumps up and spreads throughout the brain killing many brain cells. As Tau kills brain cells, the mass of the brain decreases overtime causing loss of functions. The irreversible deterioration is seen in military veterans and contact sport athletes. Patients experiencing CTE go through depression , aggression, addiction, and memory loss that concludes to other diseases that they are at risk of getting. The most common disease is Alzheimer's which is a form of dementia causing difficulty remembering, confusion, behavior changes,and mood changes. Dementia is a disease causing brain cells to die and get damaged while getting worse overtime showing memory loss. The second most common disease is Parkinson's which includes loss of brain cells that control movement, patients with Parkinson's experience hand shaking tremors and uncontrollable movements. Also Huntington's is a disease that is inherited and passed on by a 50/50 chance of the genes, it is incurable and causes death when their are blood clots due to no