What is frontotemporal dementia? What to know about Bruce Willis’ diagnosis

nypost.com:

on Instagram that the retired actor has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.In the spring of 2022, Moore shared that the 67-year-old father-of-five was first diagnosed with aphasia — a brain disorder that affects his ability to communicate.

She stated in Thursday’s update that the “Unbreakable” star now has a clearer diagnosis, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which unfortunately means that “challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces.”While Moore did not go on to describe specifically Willis’ battles, Dr.

Allison Reiss of the NYU Long Island School of Medicine helped The Post better understand this under-researched disease. “FTD is actually a group of brain disorders that cause progressive degeneration of the neurons in the brain and, as the name suggests, affects primarily the frontal and temporal areas of the brain,” Reiss told The Post in an email. “It has a relatively young age of onset, most diagnosed between the ages of 45 and 64 years.”The condition is diagnosed using a combination of brain scans and the doctor’s thorough research into the patient’s medical history, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.There are three subtypes of frontotemporal dementia: behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and some movement disorders, according to the National Institute of Aging.

Willis’ family has not specified from which type he’s suffering. People with FTD have relatively fewer memory problems compared to other forms of dementia, Reiss wrote.