Bruce Willis has frontotemporal dementia – here’s what we know

AMERICAN actor Bruce Willis has frontotemporal dementia, his family has announced.

In 2022, the 67-year-old action movie star was diagnosed with aphasia – difficulty with language and speech.

Frontotemporal dementia is an umbrella term for any disease that causes gradual loss of brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes – the front and sides of the brain. It is one of the most common causes of dementia in people under the age of 65.

The condition tends to develop slowly, over several years. A build-up of abnormal proteins affects critical brain areas, leading to changes in behaviour, personality and speech. Unlike other forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, memory is often only affected later in the disease’s progression.

There are three different variants of frontotemporal dementia: the behavioural variant, non-fluent variant primary aphasia and semantic variant primary aphasia.

The earliest signs of the behavioural variant include changes in how a person acts, particularly in social situations. They may become tactless or make rash decisions. Or they may behave inappropriately.

Some may develop obsessive ritualistic behaviour, or lose all sense of empathy and caring.

These symptoms reflect damage to the frontal lobes, an area of the brain involved in directing behaviour, controlling impulses, managing emotions and generating speech and movement.

We don’t know which variant Willis has been diagnosed with, but speech difficulties are typically seen at the onset of the other two variants.

However, regardless of the variant, people will eventually experience many of the symptoms above. This is accompanied by increasing difficulty with walking and moving. By the end, most struggle to eat and swallow.

There is no cure for the disease and little in the way of treatment.