Catatonia as Presentation of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: a Case Report

Background: Catatonia is a neuropsychiatric syndrome, classically related to schizophrenia, but more often associated with other psychiatric, neurological and/or metabolic causes. Case Report: A 61-year-old man was admitted in the Psychiatric Department with catatonia of unknown etiology. He was submitted to a detailed investigation including electroencephalogram that revealed triphasic periodic activity and cranial magnetic resonance imaging that revealed brain cortical and subcortical atrophy of frontal and medial temporal predominance. The patient was then transferred to the Neurology Department. An increase of 14.3.3 protein in the cerebrospinal fluid, was detected and a presumptive diagnosis of spongiform encephalopathy was made. The clinical picture worsened with plurisegmental myoclonus, episodes of ocular deviation and dystonia. The patient died after 5 weeks. Anatomopathological examination confirmed the diagnosis of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Conclusions: This case report reflects the difficulty in the differential diagnosis of diseases with neuropsychiatric symptoms, particularly of catatonia, and the importance of coordination and multidisciplinary synergy in medicine