Action star Bruce Willis’ family announced on Wednesday that the actor has been diagnosed with aphasia, which led to him retiring from his career at the age of 67. Aphasia is a condition that makes patients difficult to understand and communicate with speech.
According to the Mayo Clinic, aphasia can start with communication problems. Someone with aphasia might have trouble finding the right words, scrambling the wrong words, or speaking in short sentences that are difficult or impossible to understand. These problems are related to brain damage in the left side of the brain, which controls language, Johns Hopkins explains.
While presentations can vary, aphasia is usually a symptom of a broader medical problem. It can result from a stroke, head injury, or tumor, or it can develop because of a degenerative brain disease.
While potential drug therapies are being tested, current treatment options are limited. Patients can undergo speech and language rehabilitation aimed at restoring as much speech as possible and finding other ways of communication to finally replace the lost speech.
“Language recovery is typically a relatively slow process,” Mayo Clinic says. “Although most people make significant progress, few people regain the full level of communication before the injury.”
In an Instagram post, Willis’ family wrote that the condition “impairs his cognitive abilities,” but experts say aphasia is more accurately described as a language disorder than a cognitive illness.
“This is a truly challenging time for our family and we are so grateful for your continued love, compassion and support,” Willis’ family said in a statement. “We’re going through this as a strong family unit and wanted to include his fans because we know how much he means to you, just as you do to him.”
Willis is best known for his starring role as John McClane in the action franchise Die Hard. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he has appeared in dozens of films including 12 Monkey, Moonrise Kingdom and Pulp Fiction, as well as the popular 1980s television series Moonlighting.
This story has been updated.
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