I was never a fan of his but he is part of my memories of the 70s. It’s sad news, I know what dementia can do to people, or at least the similar condition Alzheimers. My friend had early onset Alzheimers and piece by piece we watched the person we knew disappear. My thoughts go out to Cassidy.
horrible news, so sad for him.
I hope he gets excellent care
I was surprised to hear that he’s 66!
One of the guys in AC/DC also had to leave the band for this reason; he was about 60 at the time.
Way too young for any of this, but then again, so is any age.
Can’t help but wonder if booze and drugs hastened it. I am beginning to forget a whole lotta stuff myself and really have to concentrate sometimes at tasks…ah, time marches on, I hope he has some kind of support system to see to his future.
Wasn’t he also in a serious car accident a while back? Maybe I’m thinking of someone else. TBIs are being linked to various forms of dementia.
(traumatic brain injury)
He was on Celebrity Apprentice (shaddup!) a few years ago. In the episode I saw part of his team’s task was to raise a specific amount of money with whatever the task entailed. I remember him frantically calling his daughter Katie (she’s on Arrow now but back then then she was an up-and-coming singer) asking her to explain exactly what he was supposed to do. It reminded me of my mother frantically asking me how to get to our local supermarket and not understanding that it’s less than a mile from our house and she knew the route like the back of her hand.
IIRC he was eliminated in that episode and the editing made it look like he was a dumb piece of crap. Looking back…I have no words, but the thought of dementia crossed my mind.
IIRC, too, didn’t his father Jack Cassidy also have it?
His father was an alcoholic who burned to death due to a cigarette starting a fire. I don’t think we can know because he was still youngish and the science was in its infancy.
I think I love you… do I? I’m not sure. I think I love someone.
Is there any correlation between dementia and drug/alcohol usage?
I had no idea until this moment that was his daughter.
Too soon.
Of course there is! You think abusing drugs and alcohol for years and years is just a harmless past time? There is physical damage to the liver and brain, for alcohol, and a lack of thiamine due to alcoholism can bring on Korsakoff syndrome, for one. Every neurologist who sees a new patient for dementia first asks about alcohol abuse in the past. I’m unfamiliar with drugs, but I know in his autobiography David Cassidy speaks of his utter rapture in his teens with LSD. Made it sound like heaven on earth (and god knows what his blathering inspired in readers). You think that couldn’t affect the brain?
I’m remaining optimistic.
Keith Richards
Till something happens to him, I am assuming its a stretch to believe Alcohol and Narcotics are the prime cause of death.
It seems to me that LSD does in fact have a more-or-less permanent effect on the brain. It is difficult to imagine that it would not: the tripper takes a ridiculously small dose – on the order of a few hundred micrograms and is then fried for twelve hours or more. The brain eventually retracts into its more stable configuration, but I get the impression that it is never quite 100% back to the way it was.
Nonetheless, there does not seem to be much good evidence that LSD causes any kind of functional brain damage, in and of itself. If you are already susceptible to dementia, it might possibly make it worse, but there is about as much diversity of conditions amongst those who have used it as amongst those who never have.
I’ve just been reading about depression and dementia. Fortunately there is no multiplier effect, but if you’re half out of your mind with depression, and half out of your mind with dementia, you are entirely out to lunch.
My uncle, who suffered repeated physical trauma in the military, also died with dementia. We didn’t think the brain insults /caused/ the dementia, but we think it made it worse.
dementia in any form is so awful I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, even the Pumpkin-in-Chief. Now that’s saying something, coming from me.
Many years ago I read a magazine article written by Yasmin Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth… She detailed her mother’s descent into the dementia of Alzheimer’s. I don’t know how long that label for the disease had been around, but it was certainly nothing I’d ever heard of. As she wrote of the symptoms I thought to myself “That sounds like Della” who was a dear friend of the family. And sure enough that was what Della suffered from. First person I ever knew who had Alzheimers.
I read an article that said dementia runs in his family. His father had it, and so did his grandmother.
The disease was identified in 1906 by a German psychiatrist named Dr. Alois Alzheimer, which interestingly means “old age home”. Awareness of the disease really took off in the 1980s.
This was his index patient.
Are you telling me it was a pun before we started calling it old timer’s disease?
My grandmother used to tell me that I’d get whiplash because I had long hair and flicked it out of my eyes by snapping my head the way Cassidy did in his Tiger Beat days. Maybe he broke his brain doing that?
Seriously though, he has my best wishes.