What is the neurological disorder?

According to the website of the Lewy Body Dementia Association, the LBD affects 1.5 million Americans. It is a progressive neurological disorder that affects memory, cognition (especially decision-making), mood, behavior and balance of the patient and is often misdiagnosed as the case of Williams or bipolar disorder, as was Turner.

In an interview with Ted Koppel on "CBS Sunday Morning" this weekend (9am EDT / PDT), Turner, 79, compared his case to a "mild case of Alzheimer's … but not as serious … thank god I do not have that. "

Presenting some of the memory problems characterized by LBD, he had trouble remembering the name of his disorder: "I also have, let's say – whoever is – I do not remember his name – dementia .

Turner said that it left him "tired" and "exhausted", adding that the other symptom that bothered him the most was "forgetfulness".

Williams' case was much more serious, according to his widow, Susan Schneider, who called it "terrorist inside my husband's brain". Even worse, they did not know what the comedian had done in the last year before committing suicide in August 2014 at the age of 63.

In the fall of 2013, he began to show what seemed at the time unrelated symptoms: "Constipation, urinary difficulties, heartburn, insomnia and lack of sense of smell – and a lot of stress", according to Schneider.

According to Rachel Dolhun, a doctor who wrote an explanatory article about the disease on the Michael J. Fox Foundation's website for Parkinson's research, there is no definitive test for LDB. On the contrary, doctors arrive at the diagnosis using the imaging exams, physical examination, medical history and blood tests of a patient.

Once diagnosed, cases are usually managed by neurologists. (They can refer patients to cognitive specialists and psychologists to help treat mental symptoms.)

Williams' LBD diagnosis was only determined after an intensive autopsy, Schneider revealed in an essay published in the medical journal Neurology.

"The four doctors I met later and who had examined her records indicated that hers was one of the worst conditions they had seen," she said. "It had about 40% loss of dopaminergic neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout the brain and brainstem."

Schneider said that if anxiety was not new to the actor, who had been suffering from depression for a long time, the way he was treating him now was "way out of his character" to the point of alarming him. "It's only after Robin has passed away that I discovered that a sudden, prolonged spike of fear and anxiety may be an early indication of the disease," he explains. -she.

In the weeks leading up to his misdiagnosis of Parkinson 's in the summer of 2014, Williams returned home after a shoot as "a 747 arriving without a landing gear".

In hindsight, she realized that it was at that point that her husband, a graduate of a Julliard and an Oscar winner, was no longer able to hide his illness.

The misdiagnosis of Parkinson's has made matters worse because people with LDL have responded poorly to the medications prescribed for this disorder, Schneider wrote.

"I will never know the true depth of his suffering, nor how hard he fought," she lamented. "But where I was from, I saw the bravest man in the world playing the most difficult role in his life." Robin lost his head and he was aware of it.

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