Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

It begins with small changes. A word that suddenly won't come to you. A movement that no longer flows quite the way it did yesterday. An unsteadiness in your gait that wasn't there before. Then something accelerates — thinking grows cloudier, the body less reliable, the world less distinct. What medicine describes as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a process in which atypical protein structures — so-called prions — destroy brain tissue. Nerve cells die. Functions go dark. It is one of the most devastating diagnoses a person can receive.