Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (pronounced ) or CJD is a neurological disease. It is degenerative (it gets worse over time); it cannot be cured, and it always causes death. CJD is sometimes called a human form of "mad cow disease" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE). BSE is actually a cause of one rare type of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease; the two are not the same disease.