Norman Dill, 69, never thought he was the anxious type. But when he was diagnosed in 2019 with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA)—a neurologic condition in which the posterior cortex, the area of the brain involved with visual processing, is damaged—anxiety became part of his life. In the early stages of the disease, people may experience problems seeing and recognizing faces and objects. “I began to have trouble driving,” says Dill, who lives in Charlottesville, VA. “I’d turn into the wrong lane or hit a curb. When my grandchildren came to visit me that Thanksgiving, I realized I didn’t feel comfortable driving with them in the car.”
His anxiety only deepened over the next few years as the disease increasingly affected his life. When PCA advances, people tend to develop symptoms of dementia, such as memory loss and confusion. Dill forgot the names of his employees at the natural food store he’d owned for more than 30 years. He struggled to read the labels of the food items that he stocked on his shelves. He had stopped driving, but taking public transportation confused him. “It’s a free-floating anxiety,” says Dill. “I feel a sense of frustration that things aren’t right, and I want to get back to how things were before.”
Research suggests that about half of people with PCA or Alzheimer’s disease report symptoms of anxiety, and it’s common in many other neurologic diseases, too. But “it’s always hard to tell if the anxiety is a manifestation of the condition or if the anxiety is related to living with the disease,” says Danny Bega, MD, associate professor of neurology at Northwestern University in Chicago.
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