The late onset form of Krabbe’s disease is very rare and can vary very considerably between different affected people, both in the way in which the symptoms appear and the rate at which the condition progresses. From early childhood the child will not achieve expected milestones of motor development; physical skills will be increasingly impaired and, probably after many years, memory will become poor and there will be a slow progressive loss of mental skills; the optic nerve in the brain will be affected so that vision will deteriorate and may be lost over time; in some cases there are long periods ( years) of relative stability but eventually from late childhood or early adulthood the disease will have caused both physical and mental deterioration which will cause the young person to be totally dependant; the child will notice the increasing physical difficulties but will probably be less aware of the intellectual deterioration, and the condition is not a painful one. The brain’s control of the muscles responsible for chewing, coughing and swallowing etc eventually becomes affected so that assistance with a feeding tube may be needed, and chestiness will develop and may lead to infections and increasing physical weakness. Eventually the combination of the diseased brain and physical weakness becomes too great to sustain life; death may occur in late childhood or later into adulthood, the time span varying greatly between affected people, but parents and carers will be aware of the increasing frailty, and death is usually relatively peaceful and expected when the time comes.