Begin Again with Davina McCall
How To Care For Someone With Dementia: Begin Again Moments
22 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What emotional challenges arise when caring for a parent with dementia?
do you mind talking about your dad a bit sure can I can I talk to you about that I feel like this this podcast is about begin again and lots of people that watch this might be going through a phase of their life where life changes quite a lot I think when you're an adult and you're beginning to look after your parents. Yeah.
And it always seems to happen at a time in our lives when there's a load of other stuff going on as well. We might have teenagers who are struggling or we might have illness and then parents. Yeah.
you know having had like the golden years of 30s 40s you know career and marriage and yeah little kids little kids it's like the glory years and then it we hit a pretty hard time yeah how to navigate that and you were saying your mum who sounded like she was a driving force in your family completely that you get a lot of your fire yeah she was she was an extraordinary woman and um
I know she was very proud of me and she loved her grandchildren and she loved being able to see them and find out what they've been doing. And, and it's a sort of, there is a, you're right, there is that, there's a very blissful time in our lives when our parents are still a very, still playing quite an active part in our lives. very useful when it comes to childcare.
But also it's a very, it's a sort of great support mechanism knowing that they're still there. And there's also something wonderful about seeing that sort of, there is a sort of brief fleeting moment when a family as a whole, as a whole, grandparents, you, kids, all together, And everyone is young enough or old enough, whichever side of the spectrum we're at, to be able to appreciate that.
And it's a really blissful time. And then the kids get older and bring all the fun that teenage years can bring.
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Chapter 2: How does dementia create a sense of quiet grief for caregivers?
And then the thing, and then your parents die. And that's like, no one is your way home. What's that? No, one's really prepared us for that part of our lives. And so that can actually be a time of great upheaval, I think.
for anyone to have to be able to get to grips with when your children don't need you in the same way that they used to and that happens in a blink of an eye and then as parents we're struggling to the parenting becomes very difficult then because your your children can start thinking for themselves and making their own decisions and then
you kind of have to adjust to that go well how where at when do i where do i impose myself and where do i have to sit off and just allow them to get on with it so whilst you're dealing with that you know dropping the clutch and changing gear on that you've also got on the other side your parents suddenly getting ill or dying and um
So my mum dying wasn't a great shock cause she'd been unwell for some time. And then my dad was left on his own.
Were they close?
Yeah, they were. They did everything together.
I mean, so hard to have that many years together. And then... And then one of you go. Even though he knew she was ill, she'd lived with it for a long time.
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Chapter 3: What are the signs of dementia that may go unnoticed?
He's never been a very expressive, kind of emotional kind of guy. He's from a sort of different era, really. And... And seeing him have to sort of struggle on his own is really difficult.
Did he have signs of dementia before she died?
Yeah, I think so. A lot of those signs that we hadn't really, some of them, it manifests itself in strange ways. Irrational jealousies, which you think, that's odd.
Paranoia. Paranoia. Yeah. Can I tell you a weird thing? I understand a bit about that because I woke up with no short-term memory and it's come back very, very slowly over three months. And I struggled with all of those feelings when I was just out of hospital.
And they are akin to a sort of a... It's short-term memory loss. It's like... Like an Alzheimer's.
Yeah. I got paranoid. I got insecure. I didn't trust people that I love and trust. It was horrible. But I could feel it coming back. rather than losing it. It gave me a new... Well, obviously, you know my dad died of Alzheimer's. It gave me a new appreciation for what he'd been through and for what your dad is going through now and what it really feels like. It's extraordinary.
It's a particularly cruel disease.
And being unaware that you are doing it or that it's weird. You don't realise... that it is strange.
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Chapter 4: Why are women at a higher risk for developing dementia?
You think that it's absolutely like a normal feeling to have, but you aren't remembering everything, but you don't realize it.
Yeah, it's losing someone and yet they're still in the same body is a very weird thing.
Did you start grieving your dad the minute that started happening?
Yeah. Cause I felt like I'd lost the person that I always knew. Yes. And, um, I think it was very difficult for my mom in her, you know, with, with her being very ill, but also as he became increasingly unwell, she found it very difficult to deal with. Um, and, um, it is difficult because all the things that you always used to do together,
you can't do anymore and you struggle to find points of reference that you can share. And you miss the man who he once was. So there is a sort of grieving process that, you know, also you're going to have to go through again. So in a way, when you have a parent who suffers from dementia, you know, you've got to do it.
You grieve that person that you've lost, and then, you know, you're going to have to go through it again when they eventually do die. Um, it's a, it's a very difficult time because It's difficult when they still feel that they still want to be able to make the decisions that they think are in their best interest when you know they're not. And knowing how to deal with that is tricky.
What kind of a relationship did you have with your dad when you were growing up? What kind of a dad was he to you?
I always had a lot of... I love my dad. He... I was... He wasn't, as I say before, he wasn't necessarily the most emotionally mature person, I guess. But he came from a different time.
Did he find it hard to show his feelings?
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Chapter 5: What lifestyle changes can help prevent dementia?
And he, you know, he was quite entrepreneurial. He'd be, he'd set up his own business, work for himself. He was his own boss. Um, I'd also had a lot of happy memories playing sport with him. He was a keen sportsman. So we'd play cricket together, play golf together, play football together. And so they're the memories I have of a particularly fond memories. Um,
Yeah, but we struggle to be able to share those things anymore, which is sad.
Is he still living independently?
Yeah, he is. And that's a source of anxiety for me because you're always worried about, you know, is he going to be okay? Is he doing the right, is he eating okay? Is he looking after himself? And he'd always said, you know, he never wants to go into any care or into a home. He said, I'm not going, I'm not ever doing that. And they become hard making those decisions for people.
who aren't maybe capable of making them themselves. Um, and he's on his own in a house where we, you know, we had so many sort of happy times, all of us together. It's now just him.
Is he in the country? Yeah. So he's quite a long way away from you.
Yeah. Which is a bit stressful, right? It's difficult. Um, So, yeah. And I feel for anyone who's going through that themselves, it's tough.
It is.
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Chapter 6: How does hearing loss relate to dementia risk?
And you know it's going to be a difficult journey. That's the whole thing.
Well, yeah. It's a book where you know the ending. Yeah. And it being able to – it's not like you can – it's difficult to ever enjoy the time that you do have left.
But what I'm so interested about is dementia and that – Is it true that more women than men get dementia?
Yes. So when it comes to something like Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common form of dementia, because dementia is an umbrella term, women have twice the risk of men. So of every three dementia patients, two of them are women.
Okay. So when I've been told about that, that more women than men get it, I've been told that it's because we live longer. Is that true?
Yes.
It's not true. It's not true.
Stop it. And it's not true. Sorry, I love you. I didn't mean to slap your face in there. What? It's not true for a few reasons. Yeah, right. So first of all, if that were the case, then if it was simply about aging, we would expect longer lived populations to have higher rates of Alzheimer's disease. And that's not what we see.
So places like Japan, places like Greece, who have an older population, Italy, don't have correlation with dementia. So for example, in the UK, dementia is our leading cause of death.
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Chapter 7: What role does social isolation play in dementia?
So that's in the UK. But somewhere like Greece, an older woman is more likely to die from a respiratory infection. So complications of a flu or pneumonia than she is from Alzheimer's, even though on average she will live longer. So it's not simply what we can say. It's not simply about age. And then there are there's another interesting, very worrying trend, which is.
young onset dementia so there's early onset dementia which we do think seems to be genetically linked but young onset dementia which is when you're being diagnosed at a younger age tells us that it's not about age because dementia is typically an age-related condition but if there's something going wrong if you're if we're getting diagnosed earlier that means there's something going on with the health of our brains that our brains are aging at an accelerated rate
when our bodies aren't so much. So it's not simply about age.
And having seen my father go through Alzheimer's, the one thing that you want to do for as long as you possibly can is preserve brain health because watching somebody go through that, it's not something I would want to experience. It's horrible. And interestingly, you said this terrible trend for younger people being diagnosed. When you're saying younger, how old do you mean?
Because I think, wasn't it, isn't dementia kind of 65 plus? 65 is the average age of diagnosis. But so would you be considered younger if you were under 65? Yes.
Okay. And there's more of that happening now. It's growing. The number of people being diagnosed in their late 40s, 50s is increasing. Wow.
Because I, you know, obviously when we were talking about older people, you were saying it's more genetic. And obviously my father had Alzheimer's, so it's something that I think about. But it's not just, you're not just stuck with that. There are things that we can do.
So much. There is so much that we can do. Right. The latest global commission on Alzheimer's disease says that 45%, nearly half, of global dementia cases can be prevented through changes in the environment and lifestyle.
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Chapter 8: How can caregivers navigate the complexities of independence in dementia patients?
Wow. 45%. 45%. The 14 modifiable risk factors, some of them aren't in our own individual hands, some of them about like air pollution and things like that. But other factors like your, you know, taking care of things like hearing. So if you're hearing...
This is so interesting.
Yeah, sorry, carry on. No, no. If your hearing starts to go, people who don't get a hearing aid are more likely... to develop dementia than people who do get a hearing aid. Similarly with eyesight. And we think that's because essentially, like everything else in your body, your brain works on a use it or lose it principle, right?
So if you don't keep working on your flexibility, your body says, we don't need to move in that range of motion anymore. Let's not bother maintaining it. We'll put the energy somewhere else. And similarly with your brain, If your brain isn't being, if those neurons aren't being stimulated and used, then your brain says, well, we're not going to put the energy into maintaining them.
We can use that energy elsewhere or just save it. And so when you lose your hearing, you're getting fewer inputs of stimulus from the environment. Your brain is being less challenged. And so it's kind of like an empty warehouse. You know, you kind of close the door and it starts to degrade because if you're not constantly using it and it's being constantly upkept, then you start to lose it.
And the other potential association between hearing loss and dementia is the loss of socialization. Yes. Because we know that social connections are so important for our well-being, helps to lower our stress.
And I think I've seen people that find it hard to hear, maybe in a big busy restaurant or restaurant. And you kind of see them kind of leaning in and then you just see them kind of check out a bit. Oh, I'll just watch this conversation happening. I can imagine that. Really stressful. So that's interesting. So if somebody is thinking that they may be getting the beginnings...
I know as a person of like later midlife, like I'm getting on now, that loss of hearing is something that you don't want to admit to. It's a pride thing. And you don't want people to think that you're old. I mean, I know some people are really proud and don't mind getting old at all, but lots of people do. And it's about like not wanting to go to get checked, but wearing a hearing aid
Does that make a difference? Yes.
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