 |
| Robin Williams (1951-2014) |
Today would have been Robin Williams' 70th birthday.
Instead he died at age 63 by suicide with depression caused by Lewy Body Dementia.
He didn't know that he was in the early stages of this kind of dementia. He had been diagnosed only with Parkinson's Disease, a related condition in which Lewy Bodies (a protein deposit in brain cells) are also present.
On the occasion of this birthday, the podcast Genius Life released a video of Robin's son Zak Williams talking about his father's suffering in the last year of his life.
Robin experienced great frustration because his diagnosis of Parkinson's didn't match with the symptoms he was going through both physically and mentally.
He had more anxiety and depression than what would be typical of Parkinson's alone.
We all think tremors are the main signs of Parkinson's, but some people don't get the tremors. Robin instead had loss of memory and episodes of extreme anxiety.
"It's a unique form of suffering in the family context," explains Zak in the Genius Life podcast #191.
"Lewy Body Disease is akin to having Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease at the same time," says Max Lugavere, who produces the Genius Life podcast and whose mother had LBD.
Robin Williams probably had LBD for about two years before he died.
My own mother's dementia in the last ten years of her life was hard for doctors to diagnose.
I took her to exams where doctors asked her to walk in a straight line, raise one arm above her head, draw a clock, and answer various questions to determine what type of dementia she might have.
Because of her gait and other physical symptoms, as well as occasional hallucinations, they said the most likely diagnosis was Lewy Body Disease. They treated her accordingly, but only an examination of her brain cells after death could reveal what disorders were occurring in her brain cells.
In her case, the post-mortem exam in 2008 revealed amyloid placque deposits around her brain cells, as well as tangles of another protein within some brain cells. These are symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease.
In other words, she had Alzheimer's, not Lewy Body. Her father had died of Parkinson's Disease, similar to LBD, so it was not easy for doctors to diagnose her illness while she was alive.
What can we do today?
- Seek medical help for signs of depression in one's sixties.
- Be sensitive to friends suddenly developing physical symptoms and mental illness later in life.
- Learn as much as you can about various kinds of dementia that can occur with aging.
See also:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/health/lewy-body-dementia-explainer-wellness/index.html
https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/30/robin-williams-dementia/
