More than a year after the suicide of Robin Williams, his widow has just given an interview to the American People magazine to reveal what prompted the American actor to end his life. “It wasn’t the depression that killed him” she declares. “Depression was only one of 50 symptoms of his illness.”
Robin Williams was in fact suffering from a neurodegenerative disease: Lewy body dementia, the second most common form of neurodegenerative dementia after Alzheimer’s disease.
Hallucinations and motor function disorders
Often misdiagnosed, Lewy body dementia causes fluctuations in mental status, hallucinations, and disturbances in motor function that mistakenly suggest Parkinson disease. Robin Williams’ symptoms worsened a year before his death, causing overwhelming anxiety attacks, delusions, and problems with movement and muscle stiffness. But it took the autopsy to discover the disease. “This disease has been stronger and faster than the doctors. But I hope this finding can help other people who have the same symptoms.” Susan Williams added.
According to the portal for rare diseases and orphan diseases Orphanet, Lewy body dementia affects approximately 1 in 900 people in France each year. Analysis of autopsies of elderly patients with dementia revealed that between 1/4 and 1/7 of these patients had Lewy bodies (clumps of proteins found in neurons in the brain).
At the moment, there is no cure for the disease, but some medications can alleviate the symptoms.
Read also :
Dementia: sleeping pills could promote it
One in three people will have dementia
