A dare devil gran, who has raised thousands for Alzheimer Scotland over four decades, is determined to highlight the illness that struck both her parents
She’s walked across burning coals, jumped out of a plane, abseiled from the Forth Rail Bridge and glided the Clyde on a zip wire.
It was after her parents, Ernest and Rosaline Dickens, had returned to their native Yorkshire from Dumbarton where their only child was born that Barbara began to detect a decline in her dad’s health. Within only two months of Ernest’s admission to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Barbara’s mum, at the age of 82, received her own diagnosis of dementia.
In 2003, a 63-year-old Barbara leapt from an aircraft in an heroic sky dive, and a year later abseiled from the Forth Rail Bridge – all in aid of Alzheimer Scotland. “Music is something a person with dementia can relate to,” explained widow Barbara, who is part of the Health and Social Care Partnership and a member of the Dementia Strategy Group.
The nerve cell damage caused by FTD leads to loss of function in the brain’s frontal lobes, which invariably causes deterioration in behaviour, personality and/or difficulty with producing or comprehending language. “They paid me for about six months until I got my formal diagnosis, but it was a really difficult time,” said Margaret, who also had to navigate the “minefield” of arranging for her pension through the DWP.“The kind of dementia I have was only recently discovered and it doesn’t have its own name.“It took me a few months to come to terms with it all, but I eventually gave myself a talking to, took myself into Glasgow for some retail therapy and felt a lot better.
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