The news that comic genius Robin Williams had committed suicide at age 63 rocked the globe in 2014.
His diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and his battle with Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), one of the rarest but deadliest brain diseases, served as additional salt to the wound.
Fans were unaware that Williams started displaying symptoms in 2013. Fans, associates, and members of the actor’s family would still mourning such a tragic loss one year later.
In May 2014, Williams received a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. Williams, however, was told by a neurologist that he did not have schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease.
In fact, he experienced “all but one of the more than 40 signs of LBD.” Susan Schneider, the actor-widow, comedian’s claims her husband never claimed to have hallucinations in an article for Neurology.
However, experts later remarked that he might have been suffering in silence and hiding symptoms from those close to him.
Schneider interviewed four physicians after Williams passed away, and they all said that this was one of the “worst pathologies they had encountered.”
