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 actorfaces.
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.
Image: Bruce Willis in 1999
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.
Image: Brain scans from a study targeting the earliest brain changes in dementia. Pic: Matt York/AP
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.
The UK and US have agreed a trade deal, with Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump confirming the announcement during a live televised phone call.
It is the first trade deal agreed after Mr Trump began his second presidential term in January, and after he imposed strict tariffs on countries around the world in April.
Sir Keir said the “first-of-a-kind” deal with the US will save thousands of jobs across the UK, boost British business and protect British industry.
• Lowering 27.5% tariff on British car exports to the US to 10%, affecting 100,000 vehicles each year
• UK steel and aluminium industries will no longer face any tariffs after they had 25% duties placed on them
• Beef exports allowed both ways
• UK to have “preferential treatment whatever happens in the future” on pharmaceuticals, the president said.
However, there is a still a 10% tariff on most UK goods imported into the US after Mr Trump imposed that duty on most countries’ exports last month.
Mr Trump said the “final details” of the agreement were still being “written up”.
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6:26
Watch full call with Trump and Starmer
Trade minister Douglas Alexander told parliament the UK has “committed to further negotiations on tariff reductions”.
MPs will be able to debate the deal and any legislation needed to implement it, he added.
Sir Keir said “this is a really fantastic, historic day” that will “boost trade between and across our countries”, while Mr Trump said the agreement would be a “great deal for both countries”.
The president said the deal will make both the UK and the US “much bigger in terms of trade” as he thanked Sir Keir, who he said has been “terrific for his partnership in this matter…we have a great relationship”.
Sir Keir said it was achieved by not playing politics, and insisted the UK can have good trade relations with both the US and the EU.
Red lines on beef and chicken
The PM said the UK had “red lines” on standards written into the agreement, particularly on agriculture.
Mr Alexander told the Commons: “Let me be clear that the imports of hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken will remain illegal.
“The deal we’ve signed today will protect British farmers and uphold our high animal welfare and environmental standards.”
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3:06
Sky challenges Trump on trade deal
‘American beef is the safest’
US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said the deal will “exponentially increase our beef exports”, and added: “To be very clear, American beef is the safest, the best quality, and the crown jewel of American agriculture for the world.”
On whether the UK will have to accept all US beef and chicken, Mr Trump said: “They’ll take what they want, we have plenty of it, we have every type, we have every classification you can have.”
Hinting the US will move towards higher welfare practices, he said US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr “is doing a tremendous job and he’s probably heading toward your system with no chemical, no this, no that”.
‘A Diet Coke deal’
Previous UK governments have attempted – and failed – to secure a free trade agreement with the US, but Sir Keir had made it a high priority.
Conservative shadow trade secretary Andrew Griffith chastised the deal, saying the UK is still in the same category as Burundi and Bhutan.
“It’s a Diet Coke deal, not the real thing,” he told the Commons.
A man has been charged after allegedly harassing Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing his car through the front gate of her home, prosecutors have said.
Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, of New Albany, Mississippi, is accused of having repeatedly sent the Friends star unwanted voicemail, email and social media messages since 2023.
The 48-year-old is then alleged to have crashed his grey Chrysler PT Cruiser through the front gate of Aniston’s home in the wealthy Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles early on Monday afternoon.
Prosecutors said the collision caused major damage.
Police have said Aniston was at home at the time.
A security guard stopped Carwyle on her driveway before police arrived and arrested him.
There were no reports of anyone being injured.
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Carwyle has been charged with felony stalking and vandalism, prosecutors said on Thursday.
He also faces an aggravating circumstance of the threat of great bodily harm, Los Angeles County district attorney Nathan Hochman said.
Carwyle, who has been held in jail since his arrest on Monday, is set to appear in court on Thursday.
His bail has been set at $150,000 dollars (£112,742).
He is facing up to three years in prison if he is convicted as charged.
“My office is committed to aggressively prosecuting those who stalk and terrorise others, ensuring they are held accountable,” Mr Hochman said in a statement.
Aniston bought her mid-century mansion in Bel Air on a 3.4-acre site for about 21 million dollars (£15.78m) in 2012, according to reporting by Architectural Digest.
She became one of the biggest stars on television in her 10 years on NBC’s Friends.
Aniston won an Emmy Award for best lead actress in a comedy for the role, and she has been nominated for nine more.
She has appeared in several Hollywood films and currently stars in The Morning Show on Apple TV+.
Image: The defendants hugged each other after being acquitted of the charges. Pic: Commercial Appeal/USA Today Network/AP
The 29-year-old’s death and a video of the incident – in which he cried out for his mother – sparked outrage in the US including nationwide protests and led to police reform.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Nichols’ family, described the verdicts as a “devastating miscarriage of justice”. In a statement, he added: “The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.”
Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he was “surprised that there wasn’t a single guilty verdict on any of the counts” including second-degree murder. He said Mr Nichols’ family “were devastated… I think they were outraged”.
Image: Former police officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith were accused of second-degree murder. Pic: Memphis Police Dept/AP
But despite the three defendants being acquitted of state charges during the trial in Memphis, they still face the prospect of years in prison after they were convicted of federal charges of witness tampering last year.
Two other former officers previously pleaded guilty in both state and federal court. Desmond Mills Jr. gave evidence as a prosecution witness, while Emmitt Martin was blamed for the majority of the violence.
Sentencing for all five officers is pending.
Image: Tyre Nichols’ death sparked street protests in January 2023 in Memphis and across the US. Pic: AP
Video evidence showed Mr Nichols was stopped in his car, yanked from his vehicle, pepper-sprayed and hit with a Taser. He broke free and ran away before the five police officers caught up with him again, and the beating took place.
Prosecutors argued that the officers used excessive, deadly force in trying to handcuff Mr Nichols and were criminally responsible for each others’ actions.
They also said the officers had a duty to intervene and stop the beating and tell medics that Mr Nichols had been hit repeatedly in the head, but they failed to do so.
The trial heard Mr Nichols suffered tears and bleeding in the brain and died from blunt force trauma.
The defence suggested Mr Nichols was on drugs, giving him the strength to fight off five strong officers, and was actively resisting arrest.
In December, the US Justice Department said a 17-month investigation showed the Memphis Police Department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people.