The difference between Bruce Willis’ brain disorder and ordinary forgetfulness: DR. SALMAN AZHAR –

Salman Azhar, MD, Northwell Health, is Director of Stroke Services at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Legendary actor Bruce Willis’ 67-year-old family has announced he will be retiring due to cognitive issues linked to a medical condition called aphasia.

Aphasia is a condition that affects a person’s ability to express and understand thoughts, follow commands, and communicate.

However, it is primarily a speech disorder as it is less associated with a person’s ability to say words or express sounds.

A person suffering from aphasia may appear to speak clearly, but the meaning of their words is inconsistent. They may also have difficulty communicating through writing or sign language.

It’s also important to understand that there is a big difference between the usual difficulties remembering a person’s name and a more serious medical problem.

When people are tired or multitasking, they may forget the names of friends or restaurants and even where they left their keys. But usually a sane person can finally remember the word or thought they are looking for.

Aphasia is very different. A person suffering from this condition may not be able to identify common objects. For example, they may have trouble naming a keychain, phone, or jacket sleeve, even if the object is right in front of them.

Nor can they understand thoughts. If you ask an aphasic person if moonshine is made of cheese, he may answer “yes” without realizing that his answer is clearly wrong.

And patients with aphasia often have problems with both functions: expressing and understanding thoughts.

To diagnose aphasia, a doctor must perform a brain scan. These specific language and cognitive tests will reveal the cause of the disease and lead to an accurate diagnosis and subsequent treatment, if any.

95% of right-handers and two-thirds of left-handers use the left side of the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes to process speech. The remaining one-third of left-handed people dominate the right hemisphere. Speech and language are affected when this part of the brain is damaged.

Aphasia can result from an acquired injury or a degenerative condition.

An acquired injury is usually very sudden and can include stroke, physical trauma, infection, or even a brain tumor.

If a loved one is suddenly unable to speak, they should be taken to the hospital immediately, as they may have had a stroke that cuts off oxygen to the brain. When the brain is deprived of oxygen, brain cells die.

A scan of a brain that has suffered a sudden injury will appear to show damage that, over time, can develop into a well-defined hole in the brain.

In these cases, patients with aphasia may benefit from treatments that restore blood flow to the brain, and thus speech and language therapy. Therapy will allow language development over time as the brain heals.

95% of right-handers and two-thirds of left-handers use the left side of the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes to process speech. The remaining one-third of left-handed people dominate the right hemisphere. Speech and language are affected when this part of the brain is damaged.

Unfortunately, and based solely on public information, I don’t think this is the case with Bruce Willis.

There have been reports of him showing signs of deterioration on movie sets for several years, suggesting that aphasia is a symptom of a dementia-related neurodegenerative disorder.

Former co-star Lala Kent, who plays Willis’ daughter on Hard Kill, says Willis unexpectedly fired a false-signal propeller gun twice during filming in 2020.

Stuart F. Wilson, Willis’ longtime stunt double, recalled in an interview this week: “Sometimes [Willis]He just looked astray and we thought it wouldn’t make any sense, but you’d wonder if there were other things. “

These anecdotes suggest that Willis may have suffered from primary progressive aphasia or other similar type of cognitive impairment, a neurodegenerative disorder that leads to progressive loss of the ability to communicate, as well as other cognitive problems such as loss of memory, attention, and concentration. or executive function.

The appearance of the brain in such cases is very different.

Author Salman Azhar

The dominant left side of the brain shrinks over time and appears atrophied compared to healthy areas of the brain.

Unfortunately, this means that traditional language therapy cannot help in any significant way. The functioning parts of the brain cannot perform the lost function because everything breaks down at the same time.

Also, there are no drugs to treat this condition.

The key to diagnosing and treating any neurological disorder is early detection. While only so much can be done to reverse some degenerative brain conditions, patients’ lives can be greatly improved by creating a supportive living environment.

For a man like Willis, whose life was spent in public and on movie sets, and for whom effective communication skills were paramount, stress likely exacerbated his symptoms. It’s unclear when his condition was diagnosed, but it’s clear that his family is taking steps to support him.