Actor Bruce Willis’ family announced Thursday his condition has worsened and he now has frontotemporal dementia, but what’s this new diagnosis all about?
• Also read: Actor Bruce Willis suffers from dementia, family announces
It is the second most common case of dementia, after Alzheimer’s disease, according to physician and assistant professor of neurology at Emory University in Atlanta, Julien Cavanagh.
“This is the reason for his aphasia, which he announced to us a year ago, which is a neurological disorder affecting the areas of the brain that control language,” he explains. That means it can lead to an inability to express or understand yourself.
On the show Le Bilan, he argues that unlike Alzheimer’s disease, which often follows a stroke, progressive aphasia is called “neurodegenerative” because it occurs gradually.
“The brain tissue is damaged, it’s called dementia,” he says.
The doctor adds that the actor probably knew he had it for a long time.
“Often we have an insidious start,” he continues. We’re searching for words, we’re in trouble on the phone. For someone like Bruce Willis who has to learn and understand lyrics, that must have alarmed him pretty quickly.
The actor’s health is likely to continue to deteriorate over time.
“As the disease progresses, the disease eventually invades other cognitive areas, like memory, the ability to orient yourself, the ability to function in the physical world, the ability to make a coffee,” says the assistant professor.
Although there is no specific cure for this disease, treatments in animals exist with the hope that one day they can be used in humans.
However, symptomatic treatments are possible to try to slow down and relieve symptoms.
“Having a celebrity like Bruce Willis to raise awareness of this disease helps stimulate [le développement de remèdes] and the families who live with this diagnosis on a daily basis may feel a little less alone, and that’s a good thing,” says the doctor.
Watch the full interview with Dr. Cavanagh in the video above