Terry Pratchett: Living With Alzheimer's For BBC TWO, UK

Main Category: Alzheimer's / Dementia
Article Date: 05 Dec 2008 - 2:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Bestselling author, Terry Pratchett, is 60 years old and has recently been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease - but he's not going to take it lying down. He wants Alzheimer's to be sorry that it ever caught him.

As part of BBC TWO's documentary strand focusing on mental health and wellbeing subjects, BBC Headroom, where high-profile personalities tackle a subject matter of personal importance to them - we join Terry Pratchett as he journeys into his uncertain future living with Alzheimer's - a world ultimately without words.

Having sold almost 60 million books worldwide, Terry is a man whose imagination is in constant overdrive. The prospect of living without memories or words frightens him.

"I used to be a high speed touch typist. I laughed in the face of the spell checker. But then one day last year, it all started to go wrong."

The first film begins in early 2008 soon after Terry's diagnosis. As he battles with tying his tie and struggles to cope at a public reading of his new book, he explicitly discusses his anger at being diagnosed with an illness for which there remains no cure. The film follows Terry as he tackles the disease head on, tries out some alternative treatments, and confronts leading scientists about how close they are to 'the secret cure, bubbling in a cauldron.'

Surprised by how subtle the effects and symptoms of the disease actually are, Terry meets other people who share the same rare diagnosis as him, each at various stages along this 'dark and unknowing path.' He visits his specialist for tests, using mini mental state examinations to determine the severity of his condition and which parts of his brain are being affected the most. His PA, Rob is probed to reveal more about Terry than Terry might know himself - after all 'this is the disease that hides itself even from the person who has it.'

In the second film, Terry contemplates his future and the difficulty of facing the inevitable 'end game.' Terry travels across the pond to learn, first hand, how Americans are dealing with the 'tsunami of Alzheimer's' that is threatening their health care to find out if they are closer to beating the disease.

"If you're diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, you feel as though you're standing on a beach and the tide has gone out and so has everybody else. There's no one there."

In LA, Terry meets the unlikely doctor who has recently come across a controversial new Alzheimer's treatment which he claims produces remarkable results in minutes, and in New York State he meets one of the leading experts in PCA (Posterior Cortical Atrophy), Terry's variant form of the illness.

He confronts his probable future by visiting a care home devoted to residents with dementia, whilst evaluating the difficult dilemma thousands of carers are faced with when dealing with a loved one who can't look after themselves.

Passionately determined to 'name the demon' and rid patients of the shame and stigma attached to this illness, Terry's desire is to find a treatment, if not a cure, which will allow him to carry on writing for as long as possible - he doesn't have any time to waste.

Terry Pratchett: Living With Alzheimer's is produced by IWC Media for BBC TWO and commissioned by BBC Learning for BBC Headroom - the BBC's two-year mental health and wellbeing initiative. This two-part series will be broadcast in January 2009.

Notes

- 2 x 60 minutes, BBC TWO, TX January 2009 (Date TBC)

- Launched in May 2008, BBC Headroom is a two-year mental health and wellbeing project. It aims to raise awareness of the importance of good mental health and de-stigmatise the problems surrounding the mental illness issues which face up to one in four of the population including anxiety, stress, depression and nervous breakdown.

- Previous BBC TWO documentaries in this strand for BBC Headroom where well-known personalities explore their personal mental health problems have included Losing It, a film charting Griff Rhys Jones' issues with anger; Cracking Up, in which Alastair Campbell talked about the nervous breakdown he suffered in 1986, giving his first in depth account of this life changing event, revisiting the people, places, and landmarks of his breakdown and subsequent recovery; and Michael Portillo: Death Of A School Friend where Michael explored suicide as he looked back to when a close friend in his school class killed himself.

- Further documentaries announced for BBC TWO's Headroom documentary strand include Self Harm and Meera, a sensitive film in which Meera Syal looks at the issue of self-harm in the UK. *TX date TBC

- bbc.co.uk/headroom - home to the BBCHeadroom campaign - will host a range of advice, webcasts and wellbeing guides relating to Alzheimer's disease.

- BBC Headroom has launched a mental health action line - 08000 933 193 - which offers callers advice about where to get support if they, or someone they know, is suffering from Alzheimer's or dealing with other mental health issues.

BBC Headroom