Late onset symptoms of this disease can begin at any age depending on the genes affected. At present, there is no cure for this disease but there are ways to deal with symptoms through treatments and medications. Signs and symptoms
Symptoms of Lafora disease begin to develop during the early adolescent years, and symptoms progress as time passes. In the years before then, there is generally no indication of the presence of the disease, though in a few cases, the disease presents as a learning disorder around 5 years of age. In extremely rare cases, symptoms may not show at all until as late as the 3rd decade of life, though these cases have slower progression than typical LD. The most common feature of Lafora disease is seizures that have been reported mainly as occipital seizures and myoclonic seizures with some cases of generalized tonic-clonic seizures, atypical absence seizures, and atonic and complex partial seizures. Other symptoms common with the seizures are drop attacks, ataxia, temporary blindness, visual hallucinations, and a quickly-developing and dramatic dementia.Other common signs and symptoms associated with Lafora disease are behavioral changes due to the frequency of seizures. Over time those affected with Lafora disease have brain changes that cause confusion, speech difficulties, depression, decline in intellectual function, impaired judgement and impaired memory.
Lafora disease is a rare, adult-onset and autosomal recessive genetic disorder which results in myoclonus epilepsy and usually results in death several years after the onset of symptoms. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of inclusion bodies, known as Lafora bodies, within the cytoplasm of the cells in the heart, liver, muscle, and skin. : 545  Lafora disease is also a neurodegenerative disease that causes impairment in the development of cerebral cortical neurons and is a glycogen metabolism disorder. Lafora disease (LD) was described by the Spanish Neuropathologist Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora (1886-1971) in 1911, while directing the Neuropathology Section at the Government Hospital for Mental Insane (current NIH, USA)
Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora was a disciple of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1906) and one of the most brilliant exponents of the Cajal School or the Spanish Neurological School. Typically Lafora is very rare in children, adolescents and adults worldwide. However, Lafora disease has a higher incidence among children and adolescents with ancestry from regions where incestuous relationships are common, namely the Mediterranean (North Africa, Southern Europe), the Middle East, India, and Pakistan. Dogs can also have the condition. In canines, Lafora disease can spontaneously occur in any breed, but the Miniature Wire Haired Dachshund, Bassett Hound, and the Beagle are predisposed to LD.Most human patients with this disease do not live past the age of twenty-five, and death within ten years of symptoms is usually inevitable.