TV Katie tells of mum’s dementia diagnosis... at 56
BBC presenter Katie Derham has told of the torment of her late mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s in her early fifties.
The broadcaster and former Strictly star’s mother, Margaret, urged people not to consider the disease the ‘preserve of the elderly’.
In a frank interview about her mother’s deterioration, she described the ‘horrific’ feeling when her mother was diagnosed at the age of 56, five years after she had first become forgetful.
She also lamented how research into Alzheimer’s remains ‘appallingly funded’ and said that ‘more needs to be done’.
The 46-year-old said that she and her family had assumed her mother was ‘surely too young’ to have Alzheimer’s when she first became forgetful, and revealed they hoped it was mild depression instead.
And her mother, who was a teacher, was too ‘cross and scared’ to have the voluntary test for dementia, and struggled with the symptoms for years.
However, shortly after Miss Derham had secured a job at ITN and got engaged aged 28, she was told her mother had been diagnosed.
She told The Times: ‘The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s was horrific. My mother was super-bright. She was extremely funny. Very strong-minded.
‘She was still young and should have been getting excited about my wedding.’
Miss Derham said ‘alarm bells’ started to ring when her mother began struggling to remember her pupils’ names and find the right classrooms.
The mother-of-two added: ‘Because she was in her early fifties, the doctor suggested it was mild depression associated with the menopause.’
Although she lived to see Miss Denham get married and her first daughter Natasha born, her mother died from complications with pancreatitis when she was 61.
Miss Derham says her mother’s story is ‘horrifyingly common’. Office for National Statistics figures this week showed dementia is now the leading cause of death in England and Wales. More than 61,000 people died of dementia last year – 11.6 per cent of all recorded deaths.
Miss Derham said: ‘Anyone can get it. It affects hundreds of thousands directly — and millions more indirectly.
‘There is an enormous economic cost to British society — to the NHS, which does not always have the most appropriate or efficient resources, and to the families of people affected, who have to give up work to care for their loved ones.’
The Proms host praised the ‘wonderfully poignant’ Christmas TV advert by Alzheimer’s Research UK called Santa Forgot, featuring Stephen Fry, which has become an internet sensation since premiering on Wednesday.
‘Anyone can get it, it affects millions’