Dementia is one of the cruellest diseases out there. The term encompasses a range of degenerative brain conditions, such as Alzheimer’s, and is characterised by the slow erosion of a person’s self-sufficiency, ability to interface with the world, and their identity.
It’s a horror diagnosis that sadly affects around 7.1% of over 65s in the UK, 11.1% of the over-80s, and 41.1% for those aged 95 and over. While advances are being made in preventing and impeding these conditions’ progression, there remains no known cure.
Sad news from Hollywood broke in 2023 that beloved film star Bruce Willis, known for his turns in the Die Hard series, Pulp Fiction, Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, and Sin City among many more, had been diagnosed with a form of dementia.
The 70-year-old suffers from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which is a relatively uncommon form of the disease that primarly affects language and behaviour.
FTD, per the NHS, causes personality changes that can include inappropriateness and impulsivity, increased selfishness or a lack of empathy, diminished personal hygiene, appetite changes, and difficulties with motivation.
Those with FTD may also begin speaking more slowly, finding it difficult to form words, jumbling words within a sentence, and misusing words.
Memory issues, general cognitive decline and physical problems tend to follow as the disease progresses.
Along with these symptoms, FTD sufferers may also develop a condition called ‘pica’. This is characterised as a craving for eating non-food items. Children may present with the condition by eating things like sponges and sand.
While pica isn’t exclusive to FTD sufferers, people who begin eating non-food items alongside other symptoms may indeed be suffering from a form of dementia.
“Frontotemporal dementia is associated with a wide variety of abnormal eating behaviours such as hyperphagia, fixations on one kind of food, even ingestion of inanimate objects,” according to research from the International School of Advanced Studies.
“These behaviours are problematic, of course, socially, but also with regard to patients’ health as they tend to gain weight,” said Dr Marilena Aiello, a neuroscientist involved in FTD research.
“It may involve an alteration of the autonomic nervous system, characterised by an altered assessment of the body’s signals, such as hunger, satiety, and appetite. Damage to the hypothalamus can cause a loss of inhibitory signals, causing behaviours such as overeating,” she continued.
Dr Marilena added that ‘there are probably sensory and cognitive factors that can complicate the picture’.
“In patients who eat objects, for example, there is perhaps a semantic problem of recognising the object of and its function”, she said.
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Rachael Davis