Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), sometimes called Steele–Richardson–Olszewski syndrome, is a degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and neuron death in specific brain areas. The disease affects approximately 6 out of 100,000 people. Symptoms include loss of balance and other gait disturbances, dementia, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, and difficulty moving the eyes. The average age of onset is 63 and survival from onset averages 7 years with a wide variance. Similarly to FTD, Pick’s disease, and corticobasal degeneration, PSP is a tauopathy characterized by neurofibrillary tangles made of abnormally aggregated tau.