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The family of the actor, 67 years old and known for many successful films, announced yesterday the cessation of his career due to aphasia. How to define this language disorder? How does it occur? The answers of Dr Wilfrid Casseron, neurologist in Aix-en-Provence.
Known for his performances in pulp Fiction, the fifth Element, diehard or Sixth Sense67-year-old American actor Bruce Willis announced in a statement from his family that he was ending his acting career due to aphasia, without explaining the reason.
What is aphasia?
“There are two types of aphasia: aphasia which is a loss of words, of the use of the lexicon which is called Broca’s aphasia, named after the person who discovered it, and Wernicke’s aphasia which manifested by difficulties in oral or written comprehension” first details Wilfrid Casseron, neurologist in Aix-en-Provence.
“The aphasia will therefore be of one kind or another depending on the brain region affected, this will be the frontal lobe region in Broca’s aphasia and the temporal lobe region in Wernicke’s aphasia.. The communication between the two lobes can also be disturbed and the possibility for the patient to have a mental representation of an image or a word will then be scrambled.
What is aphasia caused by?
It can be caused by different things. The first pathology that causes aphasia is stroke. “Stroke is the first cause of aphasia but there are others. explains Dr. Casseron. “Mainly, we find traumatic lesions of the brain, which will damage the areas of language and neuro-degenerative pathologies, such as Alzheimer’s, which causes a phasic disorder..
Consult a therapist online
There are different degrees of aphasia, which can evolve depending on the initial cause.
As part of a stroke? “Sessions with the speech therapist may help to improve the situation..
For head injuries, the brain being plastic, the patient can also recover some language faculties.
It is in the third situation (neurodegenerative pathologies), which concerns neurodegenerative pathologies, that it is the most difficult. “In this case, it is much more complicated for patients to recover their language-related functions, which generally go on deteriorating” says the specialist.
In the case of Bruce Willis, the causes of his aphasia, which has “an impact on his cognitive abilities”according to the statement from the actor’s family, have not been revealed.