American actor Bruce Willis' family announced his retirement from acting leaving all his fans shocked.
As per an Instagram post shared by his wife, Emma Heming Willis and ex wife Demi Moore, on Wednesday, Bruce has been diagnosed with Aphasia.
The Instagram post reads: 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.
Aphasia hinders the cognitive ability of an individual
Aphasia results from damage to the portions of the brain that regulate the language which is on the left side for many people. It is often accompanied by speech disorders like dysarthria or apraxia of speech.
While in some people it may occur suddenly following a stroke, in many it develops and advances slowly as a neurological disease.
As per the US National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, mostly middle aged and older people have aphasia, though its occurrence is also possible in young people. About 1 million people in the United States currently have aphasia, and nearly 180,000 Americans acquire it each year, according to the National Aphasia Association.
In India, a research report says, approximately 1 in 240 persons suffer from aphasia.
Types of Aphasia
There are two main types of aphasia: Wernicke's aphasia which happens due to damage to the temporal lobe of the brain and Broca's aphasia which happens due to damage to the frontal lobe of the brain.
As per the US NIDCD, people with Wernicke's aphasia may speak in long, complete sentences that have no meaning, adding unnecessary words and even creating made-up words and those with Broca's aphasia may understand speech and know what they want to say, but they frequently speak in short phrases that are produced with great effort.
Then there is anomic aphasia in which the person has difficulty in naming the object even if they know it. Another type of aphasia is conduction aphasia in which the person has difficulty in repeating words and sentences even if they understand it.
Global aphasia is another type of this condition where the person is only able to speak a handful of words.
Common symptoms of Aphasia
The common symptoms of aphasia are difficulty in speaking, trouble understanding, problems with reading or writing, writing and speaking sentences that do not make sense, speaking unrecognizable words, not being able to understand what others are talking about, trying to substitute one word or sound with another.
A great actor, Bruce Willis has won two Emmys, one for Moonlighting and another for his guest appearance in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. He has also won a Golden Globe award. His recent works include 'Gasoline Alley' and 'A Day to Die' which were released in February and March, respectively. His upcoming movies are 'Die like lovers', 'Corrective measures' and 'The Wrong Palace'.
Here are the answers to few commonly asked questions on Aphasia:
What is aphasia?
Aphasia is a speech and language disorder caused by damage in a specific area of the brain that controls language expression, which is mostly on the left side in many people.What are the different types of aphasia?
There are various types of aphasia like: Broca's aphasia, Wernicke's aphasia, anomic aphasia, conduction aphasia and global aphasia.What are the common symptoms of aphasia?
Difficulty in speaking, problems with reading or writing, writing and speaking sentences that do not make sense, speaking unrecognizable words, not being able to understand what others are talking about, are few of the common symptoms of aphasia.
