Actress Carey Mulligan says her grandmother Margaret Booth’s struggle with dementia, robbed her of the person she loved.
Mulligan is an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society’s Global Dementia Friends charity which strives to help make communities more dementia-friendly, something which she feels strongly about since her grandmother was diagnosed with the degenerative disorder when she was just 16.
Talking about her grandmother’s struggle, Mulligan told telegraph.co.uk: “Piece by piece it felt like Nans (Booth) was being taken from us. As I reached my early 20s, dementia was shutting down parts of her that made us feel like we were completely losing the grandmother that we loved so dearly.”
Mulligan says her grandmother rarely speaks at all now, but says that she can communicate her feelings via her body language.
“Today, Nans rarely communicates verbally and most of the time her eyes are closed. Her body language is good and tells us clearly whether she is happy or distressed and whether she wants something or not,” Mulligan said.
“In spite of this, sometimes it feels like she’s not there any more and that we just can’t reach her – and those are always the hardest visits,” she added.
