Bruce Willis can look back on more than a hundred films in his four-decade career, and he shot several new ones in 2021 alone. But now the Hollywood star will end his career, according to a statement from his family. The reason for this is called aphasia.
Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder. Those affected find it difficult to find the right words and form complete sentences when speaking. Writing can also be affected. However, this is not a disease but a symptom of damage to the brain. In most cases, aphasia is caused by a stroke, but it can also be caused by a brain tumor, dementia or a head injury.
From the published on Instagram Statement from Willis’ ex-wife Demi Moore It is not clear what the aphasia in him can be traced back to. This makes it difficult to judge what language limitations the actor is struggling with. Depending on the type of underlying brain damage, aphasia manifests itself in very different ways.
Dwindling vocabulary, fantasy words, convoluted sentences
In the mildest form, “amnestic aphasia”, those affected have difficulty naming individual things and sometimes switch to words with semantic proximity. For example, they say tree when they actually mean a flower. People with “Broca’s aphasia”, on the other hand, tend to have difficulty forming sentences. They speak in short, simple sentence structures, often omitting articles like “der”, “die”, “das” or words like “and”, similar to the language in telegrams. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Broca’s aphasia is caused by damage to the front part of the brain area responsible for language production. Those who suffer from “Wernicke’s aphasia” often produce very long, convoluted sentences, with individual parts of the sentence being repeated or imaginary words being inserted. In severe cases, the result no longer makes sense for the listener, and the speech understanding of those affected is usually severely restricted. Here the cause is damage to the lateral part of the speech center. The most serious is “global aphasia”: those affected can only express or understand individual words or phrases. The content of communication often has to be deduced from the context.
Especially milder forms of aphasia do not have to be a lifelong diagnosis. The brain is an amazingly flexible organ, and speech therapy can help restore communication skills – although usually not completely. It is also important to know that thinking itself is often not affected by aphasia. Those affected often still have the same personality, continue to think razor-sharp, remember the same things as before. So it’s conceivable that Bruce Willis will continue to say the quips he’s known for – only that he might be having trouble uttering them right now.