Fiona Phillips has Alzheimer’s disease, and although the news is heartbreaking it did not come as a shock to the famed broadcaster.
For years, since the loss of both her parents to the degenerative illness, the former GMTV host has feared she might develop the condition.
Speaking to The Mirror back in 2012, Fiona, 62, said, “I have that feeling now all the time that I am bound to get it. I worry. I keep thinking that I might only have five years left. When people say they might be around until their 80s, I just don’t think that.
“I suppose I feel like someone with a terminal disease who realises they don’t have long left. That’s awful because I don’t want to live like that. But it is making me think I’d better make the most of life so that’s positive, I suppose.”
Fiona’s mother Amy, who was a nurse before working in a department store, started developing the early onset of the condition at the young age of 53, before she died tragically in 2006, aged 74.
Whereas her father was found to have the same condition in his early 60s, and he passed away in 2012, aged 76, after spending the end of his life in a warden-assisted flat, before moving to a psychiatric hospital.
As a result of knowing this family history, Fiona had a test done to see if she would likely develop the disease, but decided against looking at the results.
“Until they find a cure I can’t see what the point would be. There would be nothing I could do to stop it. And by the time you know it is happening, it is too late. I think early onset dementia is like breast cancer, you are more predisposed to getting it if a parent has had it,” she explained.
The journalist also tried her best to stave of the effects of the disease by following a healthy lifestyle and takes gingko baloba - a herbal medicine which is believed to help people with dementia and memory difficulties.
Sadly this did not work, but the Mirror columnist and mum-of-two, is optimistic about the drug trial she is involved in at University College London Hospital.
Although around a third of the people on the trial are given a placebo, Fiona says, “Even if it isn’t helping me, these tests will be helping other people in the future so I just have to keep going.”
