What Kind of Dementia did Estelle Getty of the Golden Girls Have?

Estelle Getty, actress in the Lifetime television show "Golden Girls" died this morning around 5:30 am. She starred as Sophie Petrillo, co-starring with Rue McClanahan who played Blanche Devereaux, who owned the house; Betty White played Rose Nylund, and Bea Arthur played as Dorothy Zbornak.

It is known that Getty has Dementia, but what is dementia? And what kind did she have?

From the Latin word "de" which means "apart, away" and the latin word "mens" which means "mind," dementia is the continuously progressive decline in cognitive function. It is caused either by disease or damage in the brain. It is similar to the effects of aging in its symptoms but it goes beyond what can be expected of aging. It can occur at any state of adulthood. Dementia is not very specific and it is an illness defined by non-specific symptoms. Affected areas of cognition can be memory, attention, problem solving, and speech and language. High mental functions are first affected, and as time goes on the victim can have confusion on what time it is, what month or day it is, and such as not knowing where they are or who they are or who they're with. Symptoms can be both irreversible and reversible.

So there's a little information on dementia, but what kind of dementia did Estelle Getty of the Golden Girls have exactly?

Estelle Getty suffered from Lewy Body Dementia. Known as LBD, it usually occurs randomly in people that have no family history of the illness. Rarely have familial cases been reported.

In LBD, brain cells die in the outer layer of the brain, the cortex, and in the middle part of the brain, called the subtantia nigra, abnormal structures called Lewy bodies appear. Hence the name.

Lewy bodies may also appear in the brain's cortex, or outer layer. Lewy bodies contain a protein called alpha-synuclein that has been linked to Parkinson's disease and several other disorders. It is unknown why this happens.

Thank you for reading my article Estelle Getty and the dementia she had.