When Robin Williams died, the world learned a name most had never heard: Lewy body dementia. The film we made from his story, Spark, became the most-watched LBD education film in the world. It is the number one program on its medical platform with over 500,000 views, recognized by the Mayo Clinic, adopted nationally by the Lewy Body Dementia Association, and taught in medical schools across the country.
But Spark ends where so many families’ hardest questions begin. What does a diagnosis actually look like? What are the treatment options? Why does this disease look so different in every person? Today those answers exist only in live Q&A sessions. The millions watching at home are left without them.
Lewy body dementia is the second most common degenerative dementia. It affects 1.4 million Americans, and it is routinely misdiagnosed for years, often with dangerous consequences. The science has moved since we made the first film. The families living this deserve a film that has moved with it.
So we are making Spark II: Robin’s story brought current, with the lives of people living with an LBD diagnosis today, the latest science, and the answers families and clinicians ask for most, with the medical content led by Dr. Bruce Miller, founding director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center.