Ronald Reagan’s daughter, actress Patti Davis, is sharing her sympathy and advice to Bruce Willis and his family after the recent announcement of the actor’s frontotemporal dementia diagnosis, nearly 30 years after her father announced Alzheimer’s.
EsB reported last week that Willis’ family shared a statement that announced his diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
In an opinion piece written for the New York Times, Davis, 70, reflected on her father’s decision to go public with his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 1994.
The former president had been out of office for five years when he wrote a letter to the country that detailed his condition.
Davis shared her memory of her mother, Nancy Reagan, calling her to tell her they were releasing the letter.
‘She said it was his idea, and she was so proud of his decision,’ Davis wrote.
She continued, ‘I wasn’t surprised – of course he would want the country to know. His love and loyalty to America ran deep. And I shared my mother’s pride in him for being so honest.’
She said he had just sat down, taken pen and paper and begun writing.
The former first daughter went on to share her concerns for the ‘Pulp Fiction’ star and his family, noting the differences in the diseases.
‘Bruce Willis and his family may have a harder road to travel than my family did,’ she wrote.
‘Frontotemporal dementia is radically different from Alzheimer’s. People with the condition can become unrecognizable in their outbursts, their aggressive and voracious behavior.
She further explained the ‘two main variants’ of the diagnosis: one having to do with behavior and the other with language, or aphasia, with which Willis had previously been diagnosed.
Aphasia is the loss of language comprehension, which Davis said can be ‘traumatic.’
‘That’s the other curse of frontotemporal dementia,’ she added.
‘It usually strikes people when they are younger, often in their 40s or 50s.
‘My hope for Bruce Willis’s family, as they go down this unpredictable and heartbreaking road, is for those around them to know that simply being there is often all you can do,’ Davis wrote.
‘There is no sidestepping the grief, the pain, the helplessness. There is just, maybe, a human wall of comfort to lean on.’
Willis is 67 years old and was first diagnosed with aphasia last year.
