Symptoms and diagnosis video transcripts

On screen: Christine and Jennifer-Rose are seen moving around a kitchen

On screen titles: Christine, 56. Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Christine: I did realise that things were a bit wrong, but I mean at the beginning with me, I had no idea what was happening to me. Jennifer took me to the doctor's. I think it started there.

On screen titles: Jennifer-Rose, 22. Christine's daughter.

Jennifer-Rose: We asked her to go to the doctor's to have an appointment to see what they thought, and then the first doctor said it was probably just the menopause, so don't worry about it. I think it was quite hard for mum to go to the doctor's in the first place, so it was quite hard to convince her to go again so it was probably six months to a year until actually the second time that she went to the doctor's and they recognised that something was wrong.

Mum missed out on a year really where she could have been diagnosed, but the doctor was just not very helpful, so early diagnosis is really important.

Christine: When I was first sick and I didn't know what was happening to me, I was sort of on my own.

Jennifer-Rose: For both of us when we got the diagnosis it was helpful and we felt like, you know, we could get help, whatever help we could do, and, you know, move on so to speak instead of just remaining in this, you know, static area where nothing was happening nothing was progressing.

Christine: I was working yes, before. I was working in (pause) Tesco.

Jennifer-Rose: In-between the doctor's appointment and the diagnosis, mum was signed off work on sick leave. She just wasn't really doing anything day to day so I think it just made it just worse for her.

Christine: If I'm not doing something, you know, its frustrating, you know I've always been somebody doing things, so, it's good to do something, yeah.

Jennifer-Rose: I went up to Tesco to have quite a few meetings with them, myself, with mum, to kind of see what the kind of implications were for not going back to work or going back to work. Then Alzheimer's Society offered to go up to Tesco to talk to them, and that resulted in mum still being employed by Tesco and having a job that she can do.

Christine: People come to help and make sure that I'm ok, and I join in um, various group things. (laughs) It's nice then because we're all the same. It makes a lot of difference. (laughs)

Jennifer-Rose: I've kind of been putting off thinking about the future, because it's quite scary.

Voice off camera: How do you feel about the future, do you think about it?

Christine: I do sometimes. Its hard. (Emotional)

On screen: Alzheimer's Society logo