Patients with the condition start by losing motor function and, eventually, even the ability to speak. It can be diagnosed by genetic tests and, in addition, the decaying tissue will often show up on an MRI. However, the condition is untreatable. It generally kills within ten years of onset, but those who develop it earlier in life have much shorter lifespans. In Babies & Bathwater, Naomi Randolph admits to Gregory House that she had a previous child who died from the disease.