What is frontotemporal dementia and how does it affect people?

Published

3 years ago

February 17, 2023

admin

Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, one of the rarer types of dementia.

His family said difficulties with communication are “just one of the challenges” the 67-year-old actor faces.

So what is frontotemporal dementia and what are people diagnosed with it likely to experience?

Frontotemporal dementia and its symptoms

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is thought to account for less than one in 20 of all dementia cases.

It is named for the parts of the brain it affects: the frontal and temporal lobes. It is sometimes called Pick’s disease or frontal lobe dementia.

There are different types of frontotemporal dementia. Behaviour variant FTD is the most common and mainly causes changes in someone’s personality and behaviour.

People with behavioural variant FTD may lose motivation; struggle to focus on tasks, make plans and decisions; lose their inhibitions; show repetitive behaviours and become less considerate of others.

The other main type of FTD is primary progressive aphasia (PPA) which has two sub-types: semantic variant PPA and non-fluent variant PPA.

Semantic variant PPA causes a person to forget the meaning of words.

The person is likely to lose their vocabulary over time and forget what familiar objects are used for.

Non-fluent variant PPA causes a person to have problems with speaking.

Over time, the person will find it more difficult to get their words out and may start to put words in the wrong order, miss out words and say the opposite of what they mean.

Last year, the Die Hard star retired from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia.

How is it different to other types of dementia?

The first noticeable symptoms of FTD are different to other types of dementia.

While people with Alzheimer’s disease often have early problems with day-to-day memory, many people in the early stages of FTD can still remember recent events.

By contrast, the early symptoms of FTD are changes to personality and behaviour and/or difficulties with language.

Who does it affect?

FTD typically affects people between the ages of 45 and 64 but can affect people younger or older than this.

How is it treated?

There’s currently no cure for frontotemporal dementia or any treatment that will slow it down, according to the NHS.

However, treatments such as medicines, therapies and memory activities can help control some of the symptoms.

There’s also a glimmer of hope for people with FTD thanks to researchers at Durham University working on developing treatments.

Professor Andy Whiting said they had conducted some “promising” research that “directly addresses the reasons why there is nerve cell loss”.

He said he was “hopeful” the current lack of treatment could change over the next few years.

What is the outlook for people with FTD?

As FTD progresses, the differences between behavioural variant FTD and primary progressive aphasia become less obvious.

People who started with language difficulties often develop changes in their behaviour and vice versa.

People may eventually lose all speech.

The later stages of all types of FTD bring a greater range of symptoms, which are similar to the later stages of other types of dementia.

The person may become forgetful, have delusions or hallucinations, get agitated easily and no longer recognise family and friends. They may require full-time care.

How quickly FTD progresses and the person’s life expectancy will depend on the individual.

The average survival time after symptoms start is 8 to 10 years, according to the NHS.

How is FTD caused?

FTD is caused by damage to cells in areas of the brain called the frontal and temporal lobes.

There is a build up of proteins which clump together and damage the brain cells, eventually causing them to die.

It’s not fully understood why this happens, but there’s often a genetic link according to the NHS.

Around 1 in 8 people who get frontotemporal dementia will have relatives who also experienced the condition.

US

Donald Trump says he wants to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un again – as soon as ‘this year’

Published

12 hours ago

August 26, 2025

admin

Donald Trump says he wants to meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un again - as soon as 'this year'

Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again.

Speaking at the White House as he held talks with the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’d like to meet him this year… I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”

“I’d like to have a meeting. I got along great with him,” President Trump said, adding they “became very friendly” during his first term in office.

“We think we can do something in that regard,” he said, adding that he would like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.

Mr Trump and Mr Kim held three meetings between 2018 and 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term and exchanged a number of, what the president called, “beautiful” letters.

In June 2019, Mr Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with South Korea.

The US president on Monday responded to a question about whether he would return to the DMZ by fondly recalling the last time he did so.

“Remember when I walked across the line and everyone went crazy?” especially the Secret Service, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

But “I loved it”, Mr Trump said. He added he felt safe because he had a good relationship with Mr Kim.

Mr Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot on North Korean soil six years ago.

However, little progress was made in curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme, and Mr Trump acknowledged in March this year that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power”.

Kim possible: Is Trump seeking another ‘Hermit Kingdom’ handshake?

It was Donald Trump’s first meeting with the new president of South Korea.

A highly unconventional platform for glowing words about the North Korean one.

He said he got along “great” with Kim Jong Un and would like to meet him again “this year”.

The US president’s renewed interest in North Korea appears less about policy and more about theatrics.

The historic image of President Trump stepping on to North Korean soil in 2018 gave him global headlines.

The timing is curious – North Korea has been busy polishing its nuclear credentials and vowing not to disarm without serious concessions.

In other words, Pyongyang is holding the same cards it held four years ago, only now they’re shinier.

But Trump seems eager to revive his image as the only US president bold, or brash, enough to break bread with the ruler of the “Hermit Kingdom”.

Supporters call it visionary diplomacy; critics call it reality TV masquerading as foreign policy.

Either way, President Trump clearly sees value in the spectacle.

Whether Kim Jong Un does is another story.

Since Mr Trump’s first-term meetings with Mr Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.

The White House said in June that Mr Trump would welcome communications with Mr Kim.

The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of Mr Lee, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.

As a gesture of engagement in June, Mr Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the DMZ along their shared border.

Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Mr Lee and Mr Trump than it was in the president’s first term.

Since then, North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

And it has developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing both troops and weaponry.

Mr Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported in June.

US

Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

Published

12 hours ago

August 26, 2025

admin

Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.

The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.

The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.

He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.

He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.

During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”

A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.

The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.

NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.

In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”

“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.

In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.

US

Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador detained by ICE again

Published

12 hours ago

August 26, 2025

admin

Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador detained by ICE again

A man who was wrongly deported from the US to El Salvador has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) again.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old originally from El Salvador, handed himself into the ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, for a check-in on Monday.

The visit was a mandatory condition of his release from federal custody earlier this weekend. However, in a court filing on Saturday, his lawyers said they expected Garcia would be detained again upon attending.

Garcia is charged in an indictment, filed in federal court in Tennessee, with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.

According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.

Otherwise, they would seek to deport him to Uganda.

Speaking at a news conference outside the ICE office on Monday morning, Garcia said via a translator: “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us.

“God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Garcia’s lawyers, also said: “There was no need to take him into ICE detention… the only reason they took him into detention was to punish him.”

A judge later ruled Garcia could not be deported after he filed a challenge asking to be allowed due process to fight any removal attempt.

Judge Paula Xinis ruled the 30-year-old must remain detained in the US until she can hold an evidentiary hearing – set for Wednesday.

She added there appeared to be “several grounds” for her to have jurisdiction to exercise relief, including that Uganda has not agreed to offer Garcia protections, such as being able to walk freely, being given refugee status, and not being re-deported to El Salvador.

After initially being detained in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and children – by ICE in March, Garcia was sent to El Salvador, where he was then imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.

The Trump administration admitted deporting Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.

After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.

The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.

Minutes after his release on Friday, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.

Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.

Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.