Terry Jones: Ive got dementia. My frontal lobe has absconded
Terry Jones first exhibited signs that all was not well with his health in July 2014. He and his close friend Michael Palin were performing with the rest of the surviving Monty Python’s Flying Circus troupe in a show of sketches and songs, Monty Python live (mostly) at the O2 in London.
“Terry was always very good at remembering lines,” recalled Palin last week. “But this time he had real problems, and in the end he had to use a teleprompter. That was a first for him. I realised then that something more serious than memory lapses was affecting him.”
Jones, now 75, later passed standard tests designed to pinpoint people who have Alzheimer’s disease. His speech continued to deteriorate nevertheless. “He said less and less at dinner parties, when he used to love to lead conversations,” said his daughter Sally.
Eventually, in September 2015, Jones was diagnosed as having frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a condition that affects the front and sides of the brain, where language and social control centres are based. When cells there die off, people lose their ability to communicate, and their behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and impulsive. Unlike Alzheimer’s, there is no loss of reasoning or orientation. However, planning, decision making and speech are affected, and patients often seem less caring or concerned about their family and friends.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/16/monty-python-terry-jones-learning-to-live-with-dementia
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