Stephen King Says He’s ‘Afraid’ of Developing Dementia

Stephen King, 77, is known as the king of horror, but there’s a health-related fear that haunts him: dementia.

​“That’s what I’m afraid of,” the best-selling author told The Times of London. “I’m afraid of that happening to me, and every time that I can’t remember a word or something, I think, This is the start.”

King’s reflection on dementia was precipitated by an anecdote he relayed to The Times about how he “wrote a story about the end of the world,” in which one man’s life ends and the whole world stops.  

“There’s a word for that, and I can’t remember what it is,” King said. “It is the idea that we all contain the world, and the world disappears when we disappear. There’s a word for that and I can’t f------ remember what it is.”

Although the word King was referring to remains a mystery (at least for now), the story he mentioned comes from his novel The Life of Chuck (2020), which has been adapted into a film starring Tom Hiddleston.

Over the next three months, Francis Lawrence, director of The Hunger Games, is set to adapt King’s The Long Walk (1979) into a movie. His game show book, The Running Man (1982), will also be turned into a film, starring Glen Powell.

When asked if he wants to keep writing, King, who has written dozens of books and short stories, said he has “at least one more” in his arsenal.

“Beyond that, man, I’m not going to say.… I’d like to go out where people say, ‘I’d like another one,’ ” he said.

King is no stranger to fear. As a child, he embraced it.

“My childhood was pretty ordinary, except from a very early age, I wanted to be scared,” he told NPR in 2013. “I just did. I was scared. Afterwards, I wanted a light on because I was afraid that there was something in the closet.” He used to listen at the door when his mom listened to a radio show called Dimension X “and go back to bed and quake.” ​

Dementia is a degenerative disease that affects more than seven million Americans. More than 288,000 U.S. adults 65 and older died from dementia in 2022, the most recent data available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are several early warning signs of dementia, including symptoms like short-term memory loss, word loss, personality changes, new sleep patterns and financial mistakes.

Forty-eight percent of adults believe they are likely to develop dementia — much higher than the actual risk. A 2007 epidemiological estimate funded by the National Institute on Aging put the rate of dementia at 13.9% for people 71 and older.

The most common types of dementia are Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia , vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and mixed dementia. All of these illnesses derive from a progressive destruction of brain cells, which is why they are called neurodegenerative diseases.

AARP has more information about steps to diagnose dementia, lifestyle changes to ease dementia, and traveling with a loved one who has dementia.