The dementia that struck actor Robin Williams shortly before he committed suicide last year can lead to devastating symptoms that include vivid hallucinations and cognitive impairment, the kind of behavior his widow emotionally described in an exclusive interview with ABC News.
His widow, Susan Williams, is speaking out this week for the first time more than a year after his death and raising awareness of how Lewy body dementia had devastating effects on her husband in the weeks before he died.
"Lewy body dementia is what killed Robin," Williams said.
"It's what took his life and that's what I spent the last year trying to get to the bottom of, what took my husband's life."
Williams said her husband initially started to report various symptoms including abdominal pain in the fall of 2013, but that it was unclear until May 2014 what his diagnosis was.