Inspiring Olive tells her dementia story
A Perthshire woman shared her experience of the gradual onset of dementia in a new awareness campaign for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Olive Munro (69) from Ardtalnaig, on the south bank of Loch Tay, was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2015.
She is one of the stars of a powerful new charity awareness campaign from Alzheimer’s Research UK, highlighting the many physical diseases that cause the condition.
Newly released is Dementia Uncovered, a series of eight hard-hitting films that highlight the experiences of people living with different forms of dementia, as well as the scientists striving to bring about new treatments.
Olive and husband Ronnie tell their story from their peaceful waterside home.
The film is a heartbreakingly poignant short story - how Ronnie and Olive met in the 60s over a car accident involving her brother and how they became devoted lifelong partners.
Ronnie, a painter and decorator, plays his guitar to his wife and they paddle
I focus on what I’ve got now. My attitude is to get on with it and live life to the full Olive Munro
together in the shallows of the loch.
Olive, a mother-of-three and grandmother-of-six, honestly recounts how when doing the church accounts, she noticed her powerful gift for mental arithmetic was failing, so she decided it was time to go for a brain scan.
Olive’s type of dementia - vascularis where blood vessels in the brain are damaged, reducing blood flow to brain cells and affecting how they work.
The Munros explain that with Olive’s dementia diagnosis and the presentation of a range of upsetting symptoms, it is unclear how life will be for the couple in future.
“My understanding is with vascular dementia the brain will die, but not in a specific order. I don’t know what I’m