The reason I have chosen Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is because of the fear of this disease, like many others, in my profession. Right now I have my apprentiship liceanse to be an embalmer, and a funeral director. The article which I read clears up the misconceptions that some people might have with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. And it also clears up wither or not it is safe to embalm people with this disease. I am going to call it CJ disease for short. Do you remember the old saying "your one in a million?" This just happens to be the number of people that CJ disease affects each year, 1 out of a million. You may have heard of CJ disease as Mad Cow disease, this is the same thing, just a different name, it is found in both humans and animals. .
What happens with CJ disease is the brain starts to get holes in it, until it resembles a sponge under a microscope. That, as you may have guessed, is not good. So what are the symptoms of this disease, I mean, how do I know if I have it or not? The first symptoms are as follows; You may have problems with muscle cordination, your personality changes, your vision may be impaired. Also insomnia, depression, and confusion. As the disease gets worse, the symptoms do too. Such as severe mental impairment, involuntary muscle jerks, and even blindness. The final stage of the disease the person loses all mental and physical functions. Their brain is mush, to put it simple. The person usually slips into a coma and dies from an infection such as pheumonia. It may be interesting to add that the duration of the symptoms to death of the patients is just a short six to nine months. .
Is there more than one type of CJ disease? As a matter of fact there are three main types of CJ disease, the most common type being Sporadic, next is hereditary, and finally acquired. The Sporadic is the most common type infecting eighty five percent of the people with the disease.
