Wendy Williams diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia: What is it? [Video]

(NEXSTAR) – TV personality and former talk show host Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia after undergoing “a battery of medical tests,” her team announced in a press release issued Thursday.

Williams, 59, is currently receiving care for her conditions, according to the release.

Aphasia, which can cause varying degrees of impairment in speech or understanding language, currently affects more than 2 million Americans, the National Aphasia Association estimates. The condition often results from a stroke or brain injury, but can develop over time due to brain tumors or progressive neurological disease.

Primary progressive aphasia, as its name suggests, is a progressive form of the condition, meaning the symptoms may start slower before gradually declining, according to the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at the University of California, San Francisco. This type of aphasia can have different causes, but can result from frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), of which frontotemporal dementia is a variant, the National Institute of Health…