The earliest dementia symptoms of Hollywood star Bruce Willis were dismissed and confused with a child’s relapsed stuttering.
The Hollywood actor has only been seen once since being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2023. Bruce, 69, decided to step away from the spotlight and announced his retirement in 2022 after his aphasia diagnosis. A year later, he was also diagnosed with dementia.
The actor’s family and friends have claimed that the actor is now “non-verbal” and that “the joie de vivre has vanished,” and his wife Emma claimed that there is a lot of “grief and sadness” in his wife. The Hollywood actor’s wife, Emma Heming Willis, has now revealed that her husband’s initial signs of dementia were ignored by health professionals.
Emma explained in an interview with Town & Country that Bruce had a bad stutter when he was a boy and was a boy. Doctors disapproved of it when it returned in recent years.
“He had a severe stutter as a child. He went to college, and there was a theater teacher who said, ‘ I’ve got something that’s going to help you. ‘ Bruce has always stuttered, but he has always managed to hide it. So, when he began to experience difficulties with language, it seemed like it was just a part of his stutter”, Emma told the publication.
She continued, “Never in a million years would I think that a person as young would have dementia.” The link between stuttering and dementia was discussed by Jason Krellman, PhD, a neuropsychologist and assistant professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
According to Krellman, changes in personality and behavior, language, or motor functioning are usually seen early in the development of FTD. “People can become withdrawn or impulsive, rigid, and socially inappropriate”, he said. They may find it difficult to understand or find words. They can have spasms, tremors, or weakness”.
Bruce was spotted in a eponymous public appearance in November and exhaled as he drove through Los Angeles. While in the Studio City district, he rolled down his car window and pressed his forearm against the ledge.
He appeared in high spirits during the drive as he kept his hands firmly pressed against the passenger door with his security teams while sporting a black LA cap and a white T-shirt.
In October 2023, filmmaker Glenn Gordon Caron told Page Six that the star was “not totally verbal” anymore. The film’s creator, who collaborated with Bruce in the 1980s, told Page Six that his first three minutes of identity reveal who I am. He’s not totally verbal, he used to be a voracious reader – he didn’t want anyone to know that – and he’s not reading now.
” All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce… you’re grateful that he’s there, but the joie de vivre is gone. “He kept in contact with the star and his ex-wife, along with their three children. Bruce now sees life through a screen door, according to Caron.
A source close to the family claimed that Emma, 45, Demi, 61, Rumer, 35, Scout, 32, and Tallulah, 29, have been spending as much time as possible by his side alongside the younger girls Mabel, 11, and Evelyn, nine. They told US Weekly:” Bruce has good days and bad days, but in the last two months, there are many more bad days than good.
“The family has grown even more close together as a result of this.” Nobody is aware of how much time Bruce has left, so they soak up every moment he’s available. Bruce has around-the-clock care, but at least one family member is always with him”.
Emma Heming Willis, Bruce’s wife, previously discussed caring for him. She said: “There is grief and sadness, there’s all of that. But you start a new chapter, and that chapter is filled with love, it’s filled with connection, it’s filled with joy and happiness. That’s where we are”.
Dementia UK offers support and guidance if you have been impacted by this tale.
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