OT: It you are a medical doctor, please read Options

[ThinAir]

If you have any experience with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease I'd like to correspond with you. This may be what my father-in-law may have.

[DNHunt]

Ernie

I'm sorry to hear about your father in law.

I'm no medical doctor but I've been to a couple of dental education classes lately where Creutzfeld-Jacob came up. There are a couple of kinds. Sporatic Creutzfeld-Jacob and a variant form. Both are rare and lead to a type of protein called amyloid being laid down in plaques between brain cells. We need amyloid but not in such large amounts.

There are a couple of reasons it was discussed. First, sporatic Creutzfeld-Jacob may be more common than thought and some cases diagnosed as Alzheimers may be Creutzfeld-Jacobs. And, second, variant Creutzfeld-Jacobs is the disease in humans that can be caused by eating beef infected with some types of mad cow disease.
I really don't know about treatment or the course of the disease but I'll keep him in my prayers.

Dave

[Joe Bob]

definitions

Here's a site...

[ThinAir]

Thanks Dave & Mike. Sporadic CJD is what it looks like he has. Whatever it is, it is a degenerative neurological disorder with fairly rapid onset. He fell on September 1st. It took 5 weeks before the medical system figured out that he'd broken his hip (after declaring on 9/1 that it wasn't broken). Hip replacement surgery followed and that has healed, but he's unable to walk or get out of bed on his own because his brain isn't capable of telling his body what to do. He's 75 years old.

We're investigating Hospice care since CJD is always a terminal condition, but we're also trying to find out if there is anything else it could possibly be. The EEG shows the pattern that indicates CJD, but we were waiting for the results of a spinal fluid analysis. Yesterday we found out that even though the neurologist has been saying for the last month that he's "on top of it", now he says that he can't say for sure that the spinal fluid ever left the hospital to go to the lab. I'm about ready to propose legislation to allow firing squads for selected medical personnel. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/ar15.gif)

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

[Joe Bob]

Welcome to the club. Grandma...90....decided to take a walk before dinner in the dark and got nailed by a backing up car. Cut and bruises is all that was diagnosed at the ER.

Later we found that she had a double fracture in her leg. She couldn't walk.....d'oh....she is now in a nursiong home and slipping in and out of dementia with a cast from toes to hip.....my Moms is handling it as they all live down south....eother way, no fun....for the family OR her.

[rhodyguy]

surgery for elderly patients can hold unforseen issues that are sort of under the radar. my dad went in for what was termed "relatively minor" surgery(neck). i came back to the hospital when he was out of recovery to find him in restraints, to keep him in bed and to prevent him from pulling out his catheter(3 times). he had delevoped "sun downing". sort of a dementia that has no set timeline for return to conditions prior to onset. it was 3 weeks before he was released and he had no memory of the stay in the hospital aside of the last 2 days before he was released. around day 10 i was informed that i need to start making plans for OTHER places for my father to reside while he recovered, "if he ever does". it was a terrifying experience for me.

kevin