The different faces of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease CJD in psychiatry

Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD) is a rapidly progressive spongiform disease of the central nervous system. Psychiatric symptoms, though considered rare, can be the presenting symptoms of CJD and impose diagnosis difficulties. We reviewed prospectively our database to identify the frequency of psychiatric symptoms as identifying symptoms among our community.

We included all patients in Sheba Medical Center who were diagnosed with CJD between the years 2006 and 2012. Data were collected retrospectively.

Twenty-three patients with CJD were admitted to our hospital during this 6-year period. Among them, 10 (44%) were diagnosed first as "psychiatric patients" due to psychiatric presenting symptoms.

In our series, the frequency of misleading psychiatric symptom was 44%. Clinicians should therefore include CJD in their differential diagnoses of new onset dementia, particularly when associated psychosis and depression symptoms persist and worsen, despite standard psychiatric treatments.