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| Bruce Willis fights a different battle. |
American actor and iconic tough guy confirms semi-retirement after a diagnosis of a uncurable disease.
Bruce Willis is stepping back from his roles as the world's tough guy because of a disorder that could seriously affect his brain and motor skills.
Bruce's wife Emma Herring, daughter Rumer Willis and her mother, ex-wife Demi Moore confirm the news of his having aphasia.
The disease could disable him permanently.
Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions.The major causes are stroke and head trauma. Aphasia can also be the result of brain tumors, brain infections, or neurodegenerative diseases, but the latter are far less prevalent.
To be diagnosed with aphasia, a person's speech or language must be significantly impaired in one (or more) of the four aspects of communication following acquired brain injury. Alternately, in the case of progressive aphasia, it must have significantly declined over a short period of time. The four aspects of communication are auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading and writing, and functional communication.
The difficulties of people with aphasia can range from occasional trouble finding words, to losing the ability to speak, read, or write; intelligence, however, is unaffected. Expressive language and receptive language can both be affected as well. Aphasia also affects visual language such as sign language. In contrast, the use of formulaic expressions in everyday communication is often preserved. For example, while a person with aphasia, particularly expressive aphasia (Broca's aphasia), may not be able to ask a loved one when their birthday is, they may still be able to sing "Happy Birthday". One prevalent deficit in the aphasias is anomia, which is a difficulty in finding the correct word.
With aphasia, one or more modes of communication in the brain have been damaged and are therefore functioning incorrectly. Aphasia is not caused by damage to the brain that results in motor or sensory deficits, which produces abnormal speech; that is, aphasia is not related to the mechanics of speech but rather the individual's language cognition (although a person can have both problems, particularly if they suffered a hemorrhage that damaged a large area of the brain). An individual's "language" is the socially shared set of rules, as well as the thought processes that go behind verbalized speech. It is not a result of a more peripheral motor or sensory difficulty, such as paralysis affecting the speech muscles or a general hearing impairment.
Aphasia affects about 2 million people in the U.S. and 250,000 people in Great Britain. Nearly 180,000 people acquire the disorder every year in the U.S. alone. Any person of any age can develop aphasia, given that it is often caused by a traumatic injury. However, people who are middle aged and older are the most likely to acquire aphasia, as the other etiologies are more likely at older ages. for example, approximately 75% of all strokes occur in individuals over the age of 65.
Strokes account for most documented cases of aphasia: 25% to 40% of people who survive a stroke develop aphasia as a result of damage to the language-processing regions of the brain.
Rumer wrote on her social media: "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, which is impacting his cognitive abilities."
"As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him," the caption continued. "This is a really challenging time for our family and we are so appreciative of your continued love, compassion and support."
The caption said that the family is "moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because we know how much he means to you, as you do to him."
"As Bruce always says, "Live it up" and together we plan to do just that," it concluded, along with the names of his former wife, Demi Moore, who also shared the post, their daughters Rumer, Scout and Tallulah, as well as his current wife, Emma, and their daughters Mabel and Evelyn.
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