New Delhi: Actor Bruce Willis, who is suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), is not 'totally verbal' said Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron.
‘Moonlighting’ creator Glenn Gordon Caron has given an update on actor Bruce Willis health, who is suffering from dementia. Caron said that the actor is not 'totally verbal'.
The 69-year-old spoke to the New York Post about how he tries to visit the ‘Die Hard’ actor every month and the actor does recognise him but for the 'first one to three minutes'.
“My sense is the first one to three minutes he knows who I am. He’s not totally verbal; he used to be a voracious reader -- he didn’t want anyone to know that -- and he’s not reading now. All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce. When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there,” he noted, “but the joie de vivre is gone.”” he told New York Post.
Caron also said that he tries to talk to him and his wife and had tried hard to stay in the actor’s life.
“I’m not always quite that good but I try and I do talk to him and his wife (Emma Heming Willis) and I have a casual relationship with his three older children,” Caron told the outlet.
“I have tried very hard to stay in his life. The thing that makes (his disease) so mind-blowing is [that] if you’ve ever spent time with Bruce Willis, there is no one who had any more joie de vivre (joy of living) than he. He loved life and … just adored waking up every morning and trying to live life to its fullest," Caron told New York Post.
He also said that FTD has made Bruce, 68, unable to communicate.
“He loved life and … just adored waking up every morning and trying to live life to its fullest. So the idea that he now sees life through a screen door, if you will, makes very little sense. He’s really an amazing guy,” he said.
Last month, Emma appeared on the ‘Today Show’, and shared that she’s not sure if her husband is aware of his health condition.
“What I’m learning is that dementia is hard. 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," she had said.
FTD is an all-encompassing term for a group of brain disorders that threatens, as the name implies, the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. This means that parts of these lobes atrophy.
The shrinking of these areas can cause speech issues, emotional problems and changes in personality.
Other symptoms can include loss of motor skills including problems walking, swallowing or muscle spasms.