Personal Independence Payments: Symptoms of brain disorder which has 100% success rate for applicants

The grueling process of applying for PIP is so intensive and personalised because an applicant’s specific disability and how it affects their life is a major deciding factor in what rates applicants get and whether they’re successful at all. Roughly 52% of applications are successful but this can vary greatly depending on the condition.

Out of the 547 conditions recorded in the DWP’s report for 2023, rates differed greatly from as low as 11% success rate for oral allergies with five conditions getting over 98%. However, only one condition had a full 100% success rate for applicants according to Benefits and Work.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, and fatal, condition that affects the brain and causes rapidly worsening damage over time. According to the NHS, symptoms of CJD look similar to those of dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease and can include the deterioration or loss of:

Other symptoms include changes in personality, slurred speech and abnormal jerking movements. The disease still holds a lot of mysteries for the medical community but is believed to be caused by an abnormal infectious protein called prions that accumulate in the brain and cause irreversible damage.

Tragically, the life expectancy from diagnosis of CJD is roughly one year with most deaths due to infections as the immobility effect of the disease makes patients vulnerable to infections. It has also proved devastatingly hard to treat as the usual solutions of heat, radiation, antibiotics or antivirals don’t have any effect on the number of prions building up.

There are four types of CJD, one of which was previously known as Mad Cow Disease, and the most common of which is sporadic. Most sporadic diagnoses occur in adults between the ages of