{"id":78851,"date":"2023-09-25T20:28:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T20:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/posterboyedit.com\/?p=78851"},"modified":"2023-09-25T20:28:45","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T20:28:45","slug":"emma-heming-willis-speaks-out-about-bruce-willis-dementia-why-its-so-under-diagnosed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/posterboyedit.com\/lifestyle\/emma-heming-willis-speaks-out-about-bruce-willis-dementia-why-its-so-under-diagnosed\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Heming Willis Speaks Out About Bruce Willis' Dementia & Why It's So Under-diagnosed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nAs Bruce Willis continues to deal with neurological health issues, his wife Emma Heming Willis is speaking out about the frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis the actor received earlier this year. In an interview with Today<\/em> this morning, Heming Willis shared details on Willis’ battle with FTD, a form of brain atrophy that occurs in the front part of the brain, in an effort to raise awareness for the under-diagnosed disease.<\/p>\n

\n“What I’m learning is that dementia is hard,” Heming Willis said in the interview. “It’s hard on the person diagnosed, it’s also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce, or myself, or our girls. When they say that this is a ‘family disease,’ it really is.”<\/p>\n

\nFrontotemporal dementia, or FTD, occurs when portions of the front and temporal lobes of the brain begin to shrink, or atrophy, according to Mayo Clinic. These parts of the brain are associated with personality, behavior, and language, and FTD comes with a range of symptoms relating to those aspects. People with FTD may experience personality changes, lose the ability to use language properly, or develop motor-related issues like tremors, poor coordination, or muscle spasms. <\/p>\n

\nThe wide range of symptoms is what makes the disease so hard to diagnose, said Susan Dickinson, CEO of The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD), who was interviewed alongside Heming Willis on Today.<\/em> Per the AFTD, it takes patients an average of 3.6 years to get diagnosed with FTD, because the disease shares so many symptoms with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression, and psychiatric conditions.<\/p>\n

\nAs Heming Willis shares, receiving Willis’ FTD diagnosis felt like a “blessing and a curse, to sort of finally understand what was happening so that I can be into the acceptance of what is.” She noted that it “doesn’t make it any less painful, but just being in the acceptance and just being in the know of what is happening to Bruce just makes it a little bit easier.” When you know what the disease is from a medical standpoint, she continued, “it sort of all makes sense.”<\/p>\n

\nIn most cases, the exact cause of frontotemporal dementia is unknown, though 20 to 25 percent of patients share a genetic mutation that’s been linked to FTD, Dickinson said. However, more than half of the people who develop the disease have no family history of dementia, Mayo Clinic notes. There is currently no treatment or cure for FTD.<\/p>\n