Helen Rochford-Brennan appeared on The Tommy Tiernan Show on national Irish television station RTE, on 29 January 2022. Helen, an international dementia ambassador and a member of the European Working Group of People with Dementia (EWGPWD), spoke in-depth about living with Alzheimer's dementia and about her work campaigning for people with the condition.
Helen was 57 when she first got what she said was an "earth-shattering" diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. "It's called early-onset and to get a diagnosis is very difficult, I understand. It was hard to identify in the beginning because I was working and a busy woman," she said, "but when I got the diagnosis, of course, it was earth-shattering. I was in Galway and I was driving back to Tubbercurry and I was trying to think what I was going to say to Sean [husband] and Martin [son]. All that kept coming up in my head was that maybe in an undisclosed amount of time I may not remember them, or remember all the memories we shared along the way."
She continued: "It is difficult to live with it but it is liveable with. You have to have strategies and I think that is what has sustained me, to be honest with you: Working really hard every day and getting out in the fresh air and meeting people. You have to be pretty resilient and in particular, in the last year and a half I have had to be quite resilient because I was isolated at home." Helen went on to say that more support is needed for people with dementia in Ireland, especially those living at home who receive very little support, "which has been a big issue in this country when it comes to funding, because we're not supported to stay at home, because the policy for homecare in Ireland, as it stands, is take a shower and take your medicine. So as long as I am clean and lipstick is on and I take my medicine, that's grand. That's not good enough. We need support to live at home as long as we can and to have that choice."
Home Care, she stressed, is not just about personal care, it’s about social activity also. It is vital that we take a more holistic view, she said. The Alzheimer Society of Ireland commented that it had received an overwhelming and hugely positive response to Helen's appearance on the show, via social media. Helen Rochford Brennan commented, after the television interview: "I have received the most heartfelt letters from people I have never met. One lady wrote to say that her mother was beginning to go out again, after watching my interview. That is my job done, in telling my story, just to help others." The interview is available to view on the RTE Player, here:
https://www.rte.ie/player/series/the-tommy-tiernan-show/SI0000001918?epguid=IP000067669
