An Atypical Presentation of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease as a Stroke Mimic: Experience From an Irish Tertiary Center

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (sCJD) is a rare neurodegenerative prion disease that presents with symptoms of rapid neuropsychiatric decline including dementia, behavioural abnormalities, and loss of higher cortical function. Patients commonly present with rapidly progressive neuromotor symptoms such as ataxia and myoclonus. Very few cases of CJD have been reported in which the patient initially presents with stroke symptoms such as hemiparesis as their primary presenting symptom. We present a case of a 56-year-old male who initially presented to the stroke unit with waxing and waning left-sided weakness and a non-corresponding ipsilateral left-sided acute parietal infarct on diffusion-weighted MRI. Over four weeks, his condition progressively worsened with declining cognitive function, motor dysfunction, sphincter dysfunction, and eventual death.