Demi Moore urges families of dementia sufferers to ‘let go’ of the person they used to be

Demi Moore has urged the families of dementia sufferers to “let go of” the person they used to be.

The 61-year-old actress’ ex-husband Bruce Willis was revealed to be suffering from frontotemporal dementia last year. Demi —who has remained close to her former spouse and his current wife Emma Heming — has learned to “take in the joy and the love” for who Bruce is now, rather than mourn how his condition has changed him.

Appearing on Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM show Radio Andy, Demi was asked: “What message do you have for people out there who have family members who have dementia, who are maybe caring for them or in their lives?”

She replied: “I think the most important thing I could share is just to meet them where they’re at.

“When you let go of who they’ve been or who you think they [should be], or who even you would like them to be, you can then really stay in the present and take in the joy and the love that is present and there for all that they are, not all that they’re not.”

Her Feud co-star Chloe Sevigny then quipped: “I’m gonna use that when I go home and see my mum next. Not that she has dementia, but she is really annoying.”

Bruce’s friend Glen Gordon Caron recently spoke of his visits to the actor and while the 68-year-old star is still aware of who he is, he thinks his pal has lost his “joie de vivre” as he appears to be “seeing life through a screen door”.

He told the New York Post: “My sense is, the first one to three minutes, he knows who I am. He’s not totally verbal.

“He used to be a voracious reader — he didn’t want anyone to know that — and he’s not reading now.

“All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce.

“When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there, but the joie de vivre is gone.”

The 69-year-old director — who created 1980s comedy drama Moonlighting, which starred Bruce alongside Cybill Shepherd as private detectives — finds it “mind-blowing” to see how much his friend has changed.

He added: “The thing that makes [his disease] so mind-blowing is [that] if you’ve ever spent time with Bruce Willis, there is no one who had any more joie de vivre than he.

“He loved life and… just adored waking up every morning and trying to live life to its fullest.”