Bruce Willis’ wife revealed this week that the first subtle sign her husband had dementia was problems with his speech – which his family wrote off as part of his lifelong stuttering.
Emma Heming Willis, 46, said that while the action movie star had always suffered from a stutter, he kept it largely under control thanks to techniques he learned through acting.
But in the months before he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, he became “not very good at hiding it.”
The loss of the ability to understand or express speech, also called aphasia, is often one of the first signs of dementia, occurring years before the official diagnosis.
Now Dr. Stuart Fischer, an internal medicine specialist in New York City, told DailyMail.com President Joe Biden’s speech patterns are consistent with aphasia.
Dr. Fischer said, “Since his recent presidency he has had many other neurological problems.”
Like Willis, President Biden also stuttered growing up, but it rarely manifested itself during his 36-year career in the Senate and eight years as vice president.
Lately, however, Biden has shown signs of decline, confusing words, taking long pauses in his speeches and stuttering more dramatically.
Dr. Stuart Fischer met Bruce Willis backstage after the actor performed in the Broadway adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery
Concerns about President Biden’s speech have not gone away since he withdrew from the presidential debate. The 81-year-old insists he is in perfect health, and White House doctors said his neurological exams showed Pres Biden ‘exhibits excellent fine motor skills’
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Recently, Pres Biden stuttered while trying to bring up a comedian’s racist comments at a Trump rally, then called Trump supporters trash.
He said, “The only trash I see floating out there is his supporters, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and un-American. It’s completely at odds with everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
President Biden later clarified on social media that he was talking about comments made by a comedian at a Trump rally, including that Puerto Rico was trash.
Heming Willis told City & Country that she had seen small changes in his behavior for a long time before he was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022, but it was so subtle and slow that it is difficult to determine when the disease became serious.
‘Bruce has always had a stutter, but he’s good at covering it up. When his language started to change, it changed [seemed like it] was just part of a stutter, it was just Bruce.
“Never in a million years would I think it would be a form of dementia for someone so young.”
The British-American model added: “I say FTD whispers but doesn’t shout. It’s hard for me to say, “This is where Bruce ended up, and this is where his illness started to take over.”
In the spring of 2022, Willis was diagnosed with aphasia.
There are many different causes for aphasia, including stroke, head injury and brain tumor.
Willis starred in blockbusters such as Die Hard, Pulp Fiction and the Sixth Sense. He was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2023, but his family said he had privately deteriorated before then
They can also be the first signs of several types of neurodegenerative diseases, from Alzheimer’s disease to ALS, or in the case of Willis, frontotemporal dementia.
Dr. Fischer said it appears Biden is dealing with aphasia, but it is likely not due to the dementia Willis suffers from.
He said it could be associated with normal memory loss in old age or with another form of dementia, but it is impossible to diagnose without seeing him in person.
Fischer added: ‘As people get older, they usually develop what is called vascular dementia.
‘And that is certainly a cognitive problem. Memory is lost. Memory can be very poor, people have difficulty with words… these are things that we associate with the normal aging process.’
Frontotemporal dementia is a relatively rare form of the disease; it is estimated to affect only 60,000 Americans.
It is usually diagnosed in younger people than other forms of dementia. According to the NIH60 percent of people with the condition are between 45 and 64 years old.
Other early symptoms of the disease include apathy, behavioral changes such as an increase in impulsiveness and difficulty making decisions.
As the disease progresses, the disease can rob people of their speech, cause seizures, limit their mobility, and prevent them from controlling their bodily functions. Athena Care Group.
Heming Willis regularly appears at advocacy events for the disease and said: ‘It’s this underdog of a disease, and I don’t know why. Now I’m raising my voice and trying to get legislators to hear the definition of what FTD is and realize that there is so much work to be done.
Because the disease is rare, little research has been done on it and no treatments exist.
Once diagnosed, a person can live with the disease for more than ten years, or in some cases less than two years, and die from other conditions such as pneumonia, infection or a fall.
Pres Biden has not been diagnosed with any neurodegenerative disease, yet critics have long worried that he is mentally fit enough to hold executive office.
These concerns exploded among the public in June when Pres Biden debated former President Donald Trump.
Over the course of the 90-minute debate, Pres Biden appeared to lose his train of thought and struggle to find the right words several times.
He also spoke several times in long, rambling sentences that had little meaning.
This led to a maelstrom of criticism of his fitness, which likely contributed to his decision to withdraw from the presidential race in July.
During recent appearances, President Biden has had similar problems with his speeches. During an Oct. 25 speaking event at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, he struggled to pronounce the community’s name.
The Delaware resident has refused to take cognitive tests publicly and has refuted all suggestions of mental decline.
White House representatives said the president has seen a neurologist perform an annual physical exam for someone his age three times, and that his results indicated he was in good cognitive health.
However, authorities such as the Alzheimer’s Association Please note that only a clinical assessment by a qualified doctor can diagnose someone with dementia.
The organization said: ‘It is correct that voters should be able to discuss a candidate’s perceived mental and physical suitability for such an important role, it is not correct to speculate that someone specifically has dementia or a mental illness.’