Rumer Willis recently shared a sad update on her dad Bruce amid his dementia diagnosis. Over on Instagram, Rumer, 35, shared a throwback photo of her father holding her when she was a baby. “Really missing my papa today,” she wrote in the post’s caption.
Previously, Bruce, 68, was diagnosed with aphasia, but earlier this year, it was revealed that he is living with frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. The Alzheimer’s Association offers a detailed explanation of FTD, which “refers to a group of disorders caused by progressive nerve cell loss in the brain’s frontal lobes (the areas behind your forehead) or its temporal lobes (the regions behind your ears). The association also says nerve cell damage caused by FTD can lead to “loss of function in these brain regions, which variably cause deterioration in behavior, personality and/or difficulty with producing or comprehending language.”
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Earlier this month, Rumer’s sister Tallulah Willis gave an update on their dad during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show. The 29-year-old daughter of Bruce and Demi Moore shared, “What’s going on with my dad – he has a really aggressive cognitive disease, a form of dementia that’s very rare.”
Tullulah went on to explain that she and her family — which includes her sisters Rumer, Scout, Mabel, and Evelyn, as well as stepmom Emma Heming Willis — opted to be candid about Bruce living with frontotemporal degeneration dementia because they believe it’s important to give visibility to families who are living with the condition. “On one hand, it’s who we are as a family,” she said. “But also, it’s really important for us to spread awareness about FTD because there’s not enough information out there.”
“I had no idea,” Tallulah added, revealing that she was unaware of FTD before her father’s diagnosis. “The bigger version of what I’m trying to do (is) if we can take something that we’re struggling with as a family and individually and help other people to turn it around, to make something beautiful about it, that’s really special for us.” She also shared that she has been sorting through lots of Bruce’s old belongings as a way to understand him better. “A really beautiful way for me to heal through this is becoming like an archaeologist to my dad’s stuff, his world, his little trinkets and doodads,” she said.
