Born on March 29, 1983, Jerly Lyndogh has not grown beyond 84 cm, which is the normal height of a two-year-old baby and weighs about 10 kg. He cannot communicate and needs his mother's help for any normal activity.
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A 26-year-old youth who looks like a toddler has baffled doctors in Meghalaya. Jerly Lyngdoh is an adult trapped, perhaps forever, in a baby's body and mind.
Ruling out malnutrition as a cause for the retarded growth of Jerly, senior paediatrician J Ryngdong, who is looking into the case at the government-run Ganesh Das Hospital, said, "The boy has a proper diet, has strong teeth and has no digestive problem. What is more intriguing is his inability to speak a single word even at this age".
Born to illiterate parents in a remote village in the state's Jaintia Hills district, Jerly was shifted to the hospital on April 3 last after 17 months of unsuccessful treatment at the Shillong Civil hospital. Jerly's mother Merilda said she did not notice any abnormality when her son was born but when he was about four months, she noticed some kind of an epileptic disorder.
Too poor to afford proper treatment, she had relied on a traditional healer after Jerly became 15 years old, but to no avail. Ryngdong, who admits that the case is a challenge, said the circumference of Jerly's head is equivalent to that of a child aged between nine months and one year. "Since the investigation is still in the early stage, it is difficult to say the exact cause of the abnormality. We are examining factors like hormonal deficiency," the paediatrician said.
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