Alien hand and leg as the presenting feature of probable sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: A rare presentation of a rare disease

• Published in: Annals of the Indian Academy of Neurology Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 99 - 102
• Main Authors: Kumawat, Banshi Lal, Sharma, Chandra Mohan, Nath, Kunal, Acharya, Mihir, Khandelwal, Dinesh, Jain, Deepak
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd 01.01.2015; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt. Ltd; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd; Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications
• Subjects: Alien hand; Antigens; Ataxia; Case Report; Case studies; clinical presentation; Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease; Electroencephalography; Family medical history; Medical imaging; Patients; Rare diseases; India; clinical presentation; Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease; Alien hand
• ISSN: 0972-2327; 1998-3549
• DOI: 10.4103/0972-2327.144278

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) can have varied clinical presentation depending upon the genotype at codon 129. The common presenting clinical features of sCJD are rapid onset cognitive impairment, ataxia, psychosis and visual signs (field defects, distortion, cortical blindness). Alien limb sign was first described in patients with corpus callosal tumors and later with other neurodegenerative conditions like corticobasal degeneration. Alien hand complaints as the presenting feature of sCJD has been described in literature, but simultaneous alien hand and leg has been rarely described as presenting feature of sCJD. We describe here a case of a 55-year-old man who presented with progressive left alien hand and leg as the sole clinical manifestation of probable sCJD.