What is aphasia, the disorder forcing Hollywood actor Bruce Willis to retire?
Hollywood action star Bruce Willis, who shot to fame playing John McClane in the Die Hard films, announced retirement from his long and illustrious acting career on March 30, 2022.
The reason for Willis’s retirement: Bruce Willis’s family in a statement said the actor has been diagnosed with aphasia. His daughter Rumer Willis wrote on Instagram, “To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family, we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia…”
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Willis’s family revealed that Bruce is ‘stepping away from the career’ due to the diagnosis.
WHAT IS APHASIA?
According to the US National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), “Aphasia is a disorder that results from damage to portions of the brain that are responsible for language.”
In other words, aphasia occurs when the language part of the brain is hurt.
1. Aphasia is said to mostly affect the left side of the brain.
2. It can occur suddenly, usually following a stroke or a head injury.
3. Aphasia due to stroke: It occurs due to a blood clot, a leaking blood vessel or a burst vessel that stops blood flow to the language part of the brain.
4. It can also develop slowly due to a growing brain tumour or a progressing neurological disease like Alzheimer's.
5. Aphasia impairs one’s cognitive abilities, affects speech, reading, writing.
TYPES OF APHASIA
There are three most common types of aphasia:
1. FLUENT APHASIA: Wernicke’s aphasia is the most common type of fluent aphasia. Wernicke’s aphasia is caused by damage to the temporal lobe of the brain. Patients usually speak in long sentences that lose coherence. Patients also add unnecessary words and even make up words.
US NIDCD gave an example: You know that smoodle pinkered and that I want to get him round and take care of him like you want before.
People with Wernicke’s aphasia are usually unaware of their mistakes as they find it difficult to comprehend what the other person is saying.
2. NONFLUENT APHASIA: Broca’s aphasia is the most common type of nonfluent aphasia, which happens as a result of damage to the frontal lobe of the brain. Patients show paralysis of the arm or the leg usually on the right side, they may understand what the other person is saying and know what they want to say, but they may omit some words from their sentences.
Example: “Walk dog” for “I will take the dog for a walk”.
Patients are usually aware of their mistakes.
3. GLOBAL APHASIA: It is a result of extensive damage to major parts to the language area of the brain. Patients have severe communication problems.
There are also other types of aphasia, like conduction aphasia and anomic aphasia, which are a little less severe than the others. There is also temporary aphasia, from which patients can recover within a few hours.
TREATMENT
If aphasia is caused due to a brain injury, then patients can naturally recover from it with time, unless it's too severe. In other cases such as a stroke, patients may need speech-language therapy, the use of gestures or pictures to recover.
It is not known in detail what kind of aphasia Bruce Willis is suffering from. Reports also say that there were signs of Willis’s deteriorating health for a few years and people around him were concerned. The LA Times reported that in 2020, Mike Burns, the director of Out of Death starring Willis, had written a mail to the scriptwriters to remove major parts of Willis’s dialogue and also cut short longer monologues.
At the time, Burns had not mentioned the reason.
However, Willis is not the only celebrity to have been diagnosed with aphasia. Here are others who also battled the disorder:
1. SHARON STONE
The Basic Instinct star was diagnosed with aphasia in 2001 after suffering from a sudden stroke. She later revealed in an interview that it left her unable to walk or talk for nearly 2 years before she could learn all that again.
2. EMILIA CLARKE
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The Game of Thrones actor suffered from an aneurysm in 2011 that led to a stroke and a hemorrhage. After brain surgery, Clarke said she had trouble even remembering her name. Fortunately, it was temporary aphasia in her case.
3. RAHUL ROY
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The Aashiqui actor was diagnosed with motor aphasia in 2020 due to a stroke. It left him struggling to speak or organise muscular movement of speech. Last, in 2021, he had said that he was recovering from a stroke.
Usually, brain strokes or aneurysms can be caused by stress, obesity, excessive smoking and drinking, sleep disorders, heart problems, uncontrolled blood pressure or diabetes, or drug addiction.