[Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease as a cause or complication of senile dementia].

Two observations of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, one typical, the other atypical, recorded in a brief series of consecutively examined brains of demented patients who died at psychiatric clinics suggest that this disease occurs more frequently in psychiatric departments. The authors deal with the standard clinical and neurohistological diagnosis and the differential diagnosis. As molecular biological techniques are becoming more widely available, these examinations should be made in cases of dementia with a "negative" neurohistological finding.