Last night I watched a wrenching documentary on Alzheimer's disease and at one point during the program a list of famous people who were afflicted with the illness was shown. I was shocked to learn that Balanchine had Alzheimer's disease. Is this true and how advanced was the disease when he died?

I thought he passed away from a variant on Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.

I saw that, too, Melissa -- I hope the Trust was watching. pmeja is right -- Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.

And just to be specific, Balanchine died of classic CJ disease (or maybe, being Balanchine, he died of neoclassic CJ). Variant CJ is the one you get from eating BSE (Mad Cow Disease)-infected tissue. They still don't know what causes classic CJ.

I have not seen this show, but I did tape it, and am planning to watch it over the weekend. I did watch the beginning for just a few minutes last night while folding laundry.

Please tell me what CJ is. I have never heard of this disease. Is it like Alz's in it's symptoms? Is it a subset of some sort of Alz's?

I am just curious how some could think Balanchine died of one disease, and others are so sure about another. Please understand that I am not questioning those who have posted - I just wondered if the diseases are similar.

Thanks,
MC

I am not a medical person, but forms of Creutzfeld-Jakob are related to Mad Cow disease. The same horrible, degenerative, neurological pathologies are present in both, but different from Alzheimer's.

Everything you never wanted to know about CJD:

http://www.cjdfoundation.org/CJDInfo.html

Thankyou so much, Mel, for providing that site. Useful to read, especially when one has elderly people in the family.

Mel,

Thanks for posting this link. Once again, I have learned a lot on Ballet Alert.

I don't mean to be morbid, but in reading about the disease, I am curious. How long was Mr. B sick? During his illness, was he diagnosed with the disease, or was it daignosed after his death? Does anyone know how he came to have the disease?

mc

At that time, and maybe still, the only way to diagnose CJD positively is from a biopsy of brain tissue, and that usually isn't taken - Balanchine's case wasn't diagnosed until the autopsy. In 1983, "senile dementia" was thought sufficient to describe a whole host of illnesses which now have names.

mini cooper, Balanchine is thought to have been exposed to the disease during surgery for tubercolosis in the early 1930s -- CJD can have a very long latency period. When he was sick, the doctors could not be sure that he had the disease because his symptoms were somewhat atypical: usually, patients become mentally disoriented before their motor functions become impaired, but Mr. B was mentally alert until quite late in his illness. He also tried to hide the illness's effect on his ability to walk and move around from the doctors.

A New Yorker article last year -- on Suzanne Farrell's company -- said one of Balanchine's doctors thought he might have gotten the disease via some kind of "rejuvenation" injection he once received in Switzerland. Such injections often were derived from animal glands.

:offtopic: Love your name, mini cooper. I drive (and love) a British racing green one -- and you?