Over the last 18 months, my 74 year old
husband has had 5-6 periods of
disorientation (of very short duration -
30 minutes or less) in which he has not
lost consciousness, but with no
prewarning, simply stops communicating
logically-seems zoned out. If he takes a
short nap, he is fine. The first few times
it happened, we took him to the ER and he
was evaluated for a possible stroke.
Everything was realistically normal for a
74 year old man. Using that as his
baseline, all tests since those have been
unchanged. On a recent admission, his new
neurologist even had a spinal tap done to
check for Crutchfield-Jacob syndrome,
which we had not heard of. Our
understanding is that this primarily
attacks those of Jewish descent and is
similar to mad cow disease.
Does anyone know anything more about this
syndrome? There seems to be so little
written on it?
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Tmddyan
Moderator
Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 4349 Location: post falls, id usa
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Posted: 10-15-07 15:07pm
have they checked for seizures? some
seizures do that to you as well. ive got
clients that zone out and are disoriented
and dont speak logically afterwards. you
may want to look into that. too.
We discussed seizures at some point. I
cannot recall if any of the tests they did
were specifically for that. They ran a CT
scan, MRI, EEG, spinal tap(with urine)
multiple blood work. All were unremarkable
- haven't heard yet about the tap. Blood
pressure was fine. He is diabetic, but the
blood sugars were great, hadn't fluctuated
one way or another.
Would there be any specific tests for
seizures that were not included above? Or
do you know?
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Tmddyan
Moderator
Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 4349 Location: post falls, id usa
Thanks: 93
Thanked:63
Posted: 10-15-07 18:35pm
Im not sure Ive never heard of this
syndrome before.It could be that it is new
or something that isnt well researched.
It's said to be something like mad-cow
disease but usually affects those of
Jewish descent( my husband is not Jewish)
and who may have been in contact with
bovine (which has has not-as by trade - he
is a psychologist).
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Tmddyan
Moderator
Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 4349 Location: post falls, id usa
Thanks: 93
Thanked:63
Posted: 10-16-07 14:38pm
hum--ill have to go look this up. that
just seems strange to me.
My Mom (age 72) was diagnosed about 5
years ago w/ Alz, then re-diagnosed 6 mos
ago w/ Alz w/ Lewy-Body Dementia. On
10/5/07 her neurologist examined her
(first time in 6 mos) and suggested
Jacob-Crutchfield or spongioform
encephalopathy. My Mom is pretty much a
vegetarian and is not of Jewish decent
either. We are all scratching our
heads.... she's deteriorating quickly.
The neuro. is highly reccommending an
autopsy down the road to determine if this
is genetic. Since my Mom is so frail (85
lbs) and essentially bedridden extensive
testing is pretty much out of the
question. Just looking for
info/help/support etc, something to
un-break my heart. Anyone have any light
to shed on this???
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Georgia59
Moderator
Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 5557 Location: Along the Mississippi, USA
Thanks: 90
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Posted: 10-24-07 16:50pm
I can't find any information on it
whatsoever. Sorry guys. I'd schedule time
to sit down and talk to the doc about it.
