Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease presenting as bulbar palsy

Abstract

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a degenerative neurological disorder caused by a prion protein. The diagnosis may be challenging in unusual early presentations. A bulbar symptom as the initial complaint is a rare presentation for CJD, with only a few reports so far. These patients can be misdiagnosed with motor neuron disease or the Miller Fisher variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome. We describe a 69-year-old woman with CJD who presented with bulbar symptoms at the onset.