Mad Cow Disease In Humans, A Simple Guide To The Condition, Diagnosis, Treatment And Related Conditions

This book describes Mad Cow Disease in humans, Diagnosis and Treatment and Related Diseases
Ever since the first TV and newspaper pictures of Mad Cow Disease with cows falling on their legs and foaming at the mouth appear in 1990s, many people in Singapore and worldwide have been fearful of taking beef.
Even the popular Bovril extract made of beef has its ingredients of beef changed to vegetables

Mad Cow Disease or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is an infectious disease caused by prions that affect the brains of cattle.
When humans eat diseased tissue from cattle, they may form the human form of mad cow disease known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) or new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD).
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the classic form normally happens in older people either through an inherited tendency of the brain to change or the disease happens naturally for no apparent reason.
The form diagnosed as occurring from eating diseased cattle happens in younger people and has abnormal medical features, with outstanding psychiatric or sensory symptoms at the time of medical presentation and delayed start of neurological abnormalities.
These neurological abnormalities are:
1. Ataxia within weeks or months,
2. Dementia (loss of memory and confusion) and
3. Myoclonus late in the illness,
4. A duration of illness of at least six months, and
5. A diffusely abnormal non-diagnostic electroencephalogram.
The transmissible causes that produce the disease in both cattle and humans are atypical protein particles called prions.
Prions are not like bacteria or viruses that cause other infectious diseases; rather, they are considered infectious abnormal proteins that are able to induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins.
The abnormal prions are found in the brain, spinal cord, eye (in the retina), and other tissues of the nervous system of affected animals or humans
All prion diseases are fatal.
Animals and humans who develop a prion disease will die of it.
There is no effective treatment
Symptoms
Infected adult cattle may develop signs of the disease slowly.
It may take from two to eight years from the time an animal becomes infected until it first shows signs of disease
Similar symptoms may develop in humans: muscle spasms, lack of muscle control, worsening problems with memory.
Doctors found psychiatric symptoms in early stages of the disease.
These included depression, withdrawal, anxiety, and trouble sleeping.
Within four months of the disease onset, those affected developed poor memory and an unsteady gait.
Other symptoms:
1. Dementia that gets worse quickly over a few weeks
2. Blurred vision
3. Personality changes
4. Confusion, disorientation
5. Hallucinations
6. Lack of coordination (stumbling and falling)
7. Nervous, jumpy feelings
Diagnosis:
Early in the CJD disease, the doctor performing a nervous system and mental examination will reveal memory and thinking disorders
Later in the disease, a motor system examination may show:
Abnormal reflexes or increased normal reflex responses
Increased muscle tone
Muscle twitching and spasms
Strong startle response
Weakness and loss of muscle tissue
Loss of coordination
MRI and CT scan of brain
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
Spinal tap to test for a protein called 14-3-3
Brain biopsy
Treatment:
There is no known cure for this disease
The doctor will provide medicines to ease symptoms:
Antibiotics
Drugs for epilepsy
Antidepressants
Interferon
Medicines can help control aggression
All prion diseases cause death
The progress from symptoms to diagnosis to death may be quick from 8 to 24 months
Death is due to infection, heart failure, pneumonia

TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction
Chapter 1 Mad Cow Disease
Chapter 2 Causes
Chapter 3 Symptoms
Chapter 4 Diagnosis
Chapter 5 Treatment
Chapter 6 Prognosis
Chapter 7 Encephalitis
Chapter 8 Subarachnoid Hemmorhage
Epilogue