Eventually the person will need full nursing care. People affected by CJD usually die within six months of early symptoms, often from pneumonia. In a minority of patients the disease may take two years to run its course. Very rarely the disease can last for many years. There is no evidence that someone with CJD is in pain, provided they are well nursed and comfortable.
Drugs can alleviate symptoms such as shakiness.
There are no known cases of infection being passed to family members or health care professionals nursing an infected person and there is no need for precautions beyond normal good practice. Special precautions do need to be taken following a post-mortem. Some people were infected by a corneal transplant, skin graft or growth hormone from an infected person. Surgeons also transmitted the disease through surgical instruments which had been used on the brain of an infected person. Today, no transplants are taken from infected people, growth hormone is made artificially and surgical instruments used on people with CJD are never used on other patients.