Wendy Williams Diagnosed with Aphasia and Dementia
Former TV host Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with aphasia and dementia.
Former TV host Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with aphasia and dementia. The American celebrity has been struggling with health battles for years.American media personality Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), her care team announced in a press release Thursday.
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"Over the past few years, questions have been raised at times about Wendy's ability to process information and many have speculated about Wendy's condition, particularly when she began to lose words, act erratically at times, and have difficulty understanding financial transactions," her team wrote.
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Williams, the former host of 'The Wendy Williams Show', received her diagnosis last year, according to the statement.
Her care team explained they chose to share the news to "to raise awareness about aphasia and frontotemporal dementia."
"Unfortunately, many individuals diagnosed with aphasia and frontotemporal dementia face stigma and misunderstanding, particularly when they begin to exhibit behavioral changes but have not yet received a diagnosis," the team wrote.
Other stars have faced the same conditions. Hollywood actor Bruce Willis announced his retirement from acting in 2022 after receiving an aphasia diagnosis. In 2023, his family also announced he had FTD.
Aphasia affects all linguistic abilities
Aphasia is the acquired inability to formulate words or comprehend language. It can occur after damage to the left side of the brain. Aphasias are usually caused by a stroke. However, brain hemorrhages or craniocerebral injuries like they occur after an accident, brain tumors or inflammatory processes can also result in aphasia. From one day to the next, a person loses the ability to communicate with words.
The sudden loss of speech affects all linguistic abilities: Speaking and understanding, as well as reading and writing.
But aphasia is "only" a language disorder. Thought processes or intellectual abilities are not or only slightly disturbed.
For those affected and their loved ones, the situation is extremely stressful. The patients can no longer name even the most mundane things in life. They know what an object is, but simply lack the words.
Different forms of aphasia
There are many types of aphasia. They can be distinguished from each other based on the extent of the damage.
Amnestic aphasia
Amnestic aphasia is the mildest form of aphasia, in which sufferers have word-finding difficulties when naming objects directly. They mask the speech disorder by, for example, paraphrasing the words or using figures of speech.
Broca aphasia
People who speak in a staccato or telegram style, using very short, simple sentences or stringing together individual key words, may suffer from Broca aphasia. Although the flow of speech is strained and slowed down by the search for suitable words, the affected person can still be understood comparatively well.
Wernicke aphasia
People who suffer from Wernicke aphasia form very long, convoluted sentences in which individual passages are sometimes repeated. Those affected seem to speak fluently, but it is very difficult for them to find the right words, and often their sentences do not make sense. That makes it difficult to understand them.
Global aphasia
People with global aphasia often speak only single words or repeat the same phrases. With this, the most severe form of aphasia, the patient can hardly be understood at all.
Therapy partially possible
The acquired speech disorder is not irreversible, but it requires a lot of training in targeted speech therapy to learn to speak, and often also to write again.
Especially after a first stroke, about one third of the patients experience a largely normalization of speech functions within the first four weeks. After that, however, the chance of improvement declines steadily.
What is FTD?
FTD is an umbrella term for a group of brain diseases that impact the size of the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes, which are associated with personality, behavior and language, according to the Mayo Clinic.
When a person experiences FTD, parts of those lobes shrink. This can result in behavior that can read as socially inappropriate or impulsive, depending on which part of the brain is affected. According to the Mayo Clinic, FTD generally impacts people who are younger than those typically diagnosed with Alzheimers, a disease it is often misdiagnosed as. Williams is 59.
Symptoms of FTD worsen over time. It is largely unknown what causes it — although some research has indicated a genetic link, many patients who develop FTD are the first in their family to receive the diagnosis.
This article was originally written in German.
Edited by Andreas Illmer, Derrick Williams
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 23, 2024 06:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).