Latest news with #FionaPhillips
The Independent
16 hours ago
- Health
- The Independent
Fiona Phillips's husband on life after her Alzheimer's diagnosis
Martin Frizzel, husband of broadcaster Fiona Phillips, has spoken about his frustrations concerning her Alzheimer's diagnosis. Phillips, 64, was diagnosed with the cognitive condition in 2022 and publicly shared her diagnosis the following year to raise awareness. Frizzel co-authored Phillips's new book, Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer's, detailing his anger over the lack of support for those with the disease. He highlighted that despite an estimated one million people in the UK having Alzheimer's, including 70,000 with early-onset, there is very little help available. Frizzel, who stepped down from This Morning to focus on family, expressed a heartbreaking wish that Phillips had been diagnosed with cancer due to the availability of treatment pathways and support. Frizzel shared that Phillips sometimes becomes confused over who she is.
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
Fiona Phillips's husband on her life with Alzheimer's: ‘Bit by bit, she's not there'
Martin Frizell cannot decide what to do with his wife Fiona Phillips's recipe books. Or her designer clothes. Before she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2022, at the age of 61, the former breakfast television presenter adored cooking. She loved dressing up in glamorous outfits. But all that's gone along with her short-term memory. 'Fiona hasn't cooked in two years,' explains Frizell, the former editor of ITV's This Morning. 'Part of the heartache now is she's got this dressing room full of the most amazing clothes but this horrible disease means she's more than happy just wearing the same T-shirt, the same trousers, the same thing – day in, day out. She doesn't really have much appetite for all those fabulous things in her wardrobe.' He pauses. 'What do I do with all these clothes? It's things like cookery books as well. I've got a pile on the floor downstairs in our basement that are never going to see the light of day again. Do I take them to the dump? They're all Fiona's cookery books, but she's never going to open one again.' It is these sorts of mundane domestic details that shine a light on what it's really like to live with Alzheimer's – the most common cause of dementia in the UK. Not the statistic, scary though it may be, that one in three people born today is projected to develop dementia in their lifetime, according to Alzheimer's Research UK. Nor the knowledge that this is 'a progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, eventually impacting the ability to carry out even simple tasks'. Nothing you can google on Alzheimer's will ever do justice to what Fiona and her family are going through right now. The unvarnished truth is laid bare in the GMTV star's brave new book, Remember When: My Life with Alzheimer's, which she has written with the help of Martin and the journalist Alison Phillips (no relation, the former editor of the Daily Mirror for whom Fiona wrote a column for more than a decade). Martin, 66, who married Fiona, 64, in 1997, had intended to write 'a few paragraphs' filling in the gaps in his beloved wife's failing memory – and then, he admits, anger started bubbling to the surface. 'I ended up doing 24,000 words,' he sighs. 'I started off writing about what a great woman she is and just how horrible it is and dreadfully unlucky that she is the latest in the long line of her family to get it. Then I just got very angry as to what little support there is. You realise that there's about 70,000 people who have early-onset Alzheimer's, a million or so roughly in the country who have Alzheimer's, and you realise that there's not a lot of help out there. As a family, we just kind of get through it and at some point we will need more support, but there's just nothing really.' Recalling the 'dreadful' day Fiona was diagnosed, he continues: 'We went to [the hospital] to get the results of tests, and the consultant said: 'I'm sorry, but I believe it's Alzheimer's.' And it's like, oh. Gulp. Then he said, 'I'll go and get you a cup of tea, here's some reading for you.' He pushed a leaflet across the table and on the front cover was an old couple, with a Zimmer frame, basically saying: 'How to live well with Alzheimer's.' It just doesn't relate to you.' As Martin recalls in the book: 'Fiona had just turned 61. She was wearing skinny jeans and high-heeled boots. This was a degenerative disease for old people like the ones on the leaflet – it shouldn't be happening to someone as young as Fiona. It was utterly gut-wrenching. Sickening. We just looked at each other. S--t! What are we going to do now?' Despite nursing both her mother, Amy, and her father, Neville (known as Phil), through Alzheimer's, the diagnosis came as a complete shock to Fiona, who had been putting her symptoms down to the menopause. As well as suffering from 'brain fog', she had become increasingly withdrawn, depressed and, at times, crippled by anxiety. But having watched all this unfold in his once-gregarious, socially confident wife, Martin saw the diagnosis coming. 'Fiona was the life and soul of the party. I mean, she had no off switch, which was the thing I loved about her, even though it could be infuriating at times. She'd stay there until the end of anything and drink everything until the end. 'She loved life, and to gradually see this person becoming more withdrawn and then just being frightened about the slightest thing, getting really worked up about immaterial matters, which had never happened before, was really upsetting for all of us. 'I'd seen her decline, a change in behaviour and mood swings. I knew it had to be more than brain fog or menopause; that it had to be something quite big. So, I kind of knew it was coming to a degree, but even when it does come, it's still awful.' If finding out the news they had been dreading weren't bad enough, they then had to endure an anxious two-week wait to discover whether it was genetic – and could be passed on to their sons, Nat, 26, and Mackenzie, 23. 'Luckily, the blood test came back negative. The consultant said: 'The good news is it's not hereditary, your children don't have to worry about that.' I said, 'But how do you explain her parents and her getting it?' and the phrase he used is that she was just 'predisposed' to it. But I still don't understand what that means.' While most cases of Alzheimer's are not directly inherited, certain factors can increase a person's predisposition to the disease. These include family history, genetic factors such as the APOE gene, and other health conditions such as diabetes, heart problems and high blood pressure. Having read about the hectic life Fiona led in the 1990s and 2000s – juggling 3am starts for GMTV as a mother of young children while caring for both parents, who lived miles away in Wales – I wonder whether stress may have been a contributing factor. The pressure hit fever pitch in 2005 when Eamonn Holmes exited the show, leaving Fiona as the main presenter. She also participated in the third series of Strictly Come Dancing that year. 'It could be stress but she was always very fit. They never quite know what the cause is, but they say that some bad habits could lead to Alzheimer's. 'Hands up, we have lived life – not to the extremes – but we lived well. In our younger days, we would do a bottle of wine at night… each. That's all gone now but I don't really want to spend too much time on it because then I just feel guilty myself that I should have done more.' Guilt features a lot in our interview. As Martin and I chat in the studio of my Telegraph podcast, The Daily T, he apologises for his wife's absence. 'She would love to have been here herself but you know, she's not in the best place.' Then he apologises that he is here in her place: 'It's not my book,' he insists. 'It's Fiona's. I'm just here to spread the word.' He also clearly feels bad for sometimes speaking about his wife in the past tense, but as he puts it, he is 'living with grief on a daily basis' for the woman he has lost. 'It's like someone has passed because bit by bit, she's not there. One bit will come back and then another bit will go. It's really tough.' The couple – who first met when they were both working as roving reporters for GMTV, which Martin would also go on to edit – married in Las Vegas in 1997. They dated for just four weeks before the softly spoken Scotsman proposed. 'She had been the LA correspondent, working in Hollywood and then when Anthea Turner left, there was talk of who was going to replace her. Fiona didn't think for a second that she was in with a chance and then they chose her to sit alongside Eamonn and she came back. We got to know each other a bit more; we went to Ascot one day, as you do in daytime television, and then we went for a bit of late lunch and that was it, really.' What was it about Fiona that made him propose within a month? 'Well, she's the nicest person I've ever met. In the catty, backstabbing, tough old world of journalism that we grew up in, not everyone's nice, but she wasn't just a journalist, she was honestly the nicest person. She never had a bad word to say about anyone. 'She used to infuriate me because she would take as much time as was needed to say hello to people. She was always getting stopped. She was a lot more generous with her time than I ever was.' Now, almost all of Martin's time is spent looking after Fiona at their home in Wandsworth, south London, with brief respites for work and sailing (he part-owns two boats moored in Hampshire). 'When she was diagnosed, people would say: 'And how are you?' And I'd say, 'Well, listen, don't worry about me. I'm not the one that's got Alzheimer's.' You feel selfish but you do have to find time for yourself. You do have to find that escape route that gives you a chance just to charge your batteries for the next bit.' Martin left This Morning after 10 years at the helm in February and is now balancing a true crime podcast project with his caring for his wife with the help of Nat, who is in the Army, and Mackenzie, who works in fashion but still lives at home. Soon after she was diagnosed, Fiona was placed on a drug trial that required Martin to inject her in the stomach three times a day. Both felt that it helped to stabilise her condition – but it lasted only a year. As Martin concedes: 'There's no magic pill that's going to stop it.' Although Fiona still has moments of lucidity, she has deteriorated over the course of the past 12 months and now needs help with even the most basic of tasks, including brushing her teeth. 'If you look back over the last five years, for the first four, she was still very present and here with us. So I didn't feel I was losing her from day one. But recently, she's been in quite a lot of pain. With Alzheimer's come all sorts of secondary complications – and that then adds to the confusion. The past 12 months have been particularly difficult, not just for her, but for us as well, trying to find a way through what's causing the pain for her. And with pain comes delirium; even more psychotic kinds of episodes that are frightening for all of us.' Martin does not hold back in the book about just how hard it has been. He writes: 'Anyone who thinks they could endlessly explain the same thing over and over again without ever becoming frustrated or losing their patience just needs to try it. Not once, not now and again, but every single day.' He explains: 'Sometimes, you wonder, is it just attention-seeking that's going on? Like, can you really not see that that's a toothbrush and that's what you do with it? Can you really not? 'When I left This Morning, the press said, 'Oh, he's leaving to care for his wife.' I made it quite obvious to anybody who wanted to listen that I'm not going to be the Mother Teresa of Wandsworth. I'm not the Archangel Gabriel. I have my moments and it's frustrating. Once I realise I'm reaching the limit, I take myself off into another room and I'll almost feign being ill myself and say, 'I really feel awful, I've got to lie down.' And all of a sudden, this maternal thing kicks in. How can I help? What do you need? And she will leave me. It's back to the old Fiona again.' What they never do, though, is discuss the fact that Fiona has Alzheimer's. As Martin writes in the book: 'We have not once discussed her illness since her diagnosis.' Really? 'She's obviously always thinking about it subconsciously, but if you mention the word Alzheimer's or dementia, it brings it to the front and it's upsetting because she knows the way it's going. Both parents died from it. She was an ambassador for Alzheimer's charities.' While Fiona has chosen to isolate herself, spending a great deal of time indoors, Martin has been upset by how socially isolated they have been made to feel as a couple. 'You become almost invisible,' he says. 'We didn't go to lots of dinner parties, but we went to a few. They all dry up. 'We still have some close friends, which is great. But I think people think, oh gosh, Fiona, maybe she doesn't look the same, or they don't know what to say, or it brings into sharp focus their own mortality. So you don't get invited out much.' He recalls 'one of the saddest occasions' when a couple they knew physically got up and took their coffees outside when they saw Martin and Fiona sit down next to them in the local café. 'People don't know how to approach or converse with people who have dementia.' He adds that the best thing anyone can do to support a family struggling with Alzheimer's is to cook for them. 'Just leave something on the doorstep and walk away.' Another low was when This Morning's former presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were embroiled in a row about jumping the queue to visit the late Queen lying in state in 2022. 'At the time, Fiona was still going out to the shops and things and she was chased down the road by journalists, asking what I knew about it all. And, she didn't know, she was confused about it and it didn't help.' That was a year before they made Fiona's diagnosis public in July 2023. The saddest part of all is that there is little that Martin – or anyone – can do to stop the progression of the disease. 'Just as the cognitive test for Alzheimer's is 50 years old, so are the treatments,' he says. 'She's on pretty much the same drugs as her mum was, and she died in 2006. 'Cancer seems to get all of the attention and all of the research money.' Although the day will inevitably come when Fiona will need professional care, Martin insists they're coping. 'For periods, she is still physically present. And I'd argue for anyone to meet her in the street on a good day, she'll look just the way she was. We are determined that it's going to remain that way. So she's got her hair appointment in a few days' time. She gets her hair coloured every few months. I'm a bit lax – I've got to get her manicure and pedicure done, but it's really important. She's a very dignified woman. 'And she still amazes me. You'll be having what you think is just another wretched day and then you'll be watching something or talking about something and she'll come out with an observation that is absolutely of the moment. Sometimes her memory is better than mine in terms of what happened five years ago. Or if I put some music on, she'll know all the lyrics. 'We have this orchid that someone gave us. It was about six months ago. I looked at it this morning and it's got five blooming flowers on it. Now I haven't touched it. The children haven't touched it. We have a cleaner that comes in once a week. She hasn't touched it. So I can only presume that Fiona has.' Pointing to his head, he adds: 'Somewhere in there, you know, she has got the exact quantity of water that these things need to keep going and flourishing. I've never seen anything like it. It's the most astonishing, beautiful orchid. So yes, parts of her are closing down but she's still in there. She's still with us.' Extracted from Remember When: My Life with Alzheimer's, by Fiona Phillips (Macmillan, £22), out July 17 It was a sunny morning in May 2022 when we drove once more to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, near London's Russell Square. It's a hugely impressive place – part of UCLH and the home of some of Britain's leading research into the nervous system and brain. As we waited in the reception area, doctors in white coats were swishing up and down and it all seemed so calm and methodical. I was desperately anxious and kept fidgeting while everything around me appeared so still and controlled. After a short while, Martin and I were called into the office of my consultant. He smiled and invited us to sit down. He looked very serious, but then he always did. Martin and I sat making small talk about the weather as I scanned the desk for anything that might give a glimpse as to what was coming. 'Yes, so your results are back,' he said slowly. 'And I'm afraid to tell you that you do have early-onset Alzheimer's disease.' Neither Martin nor I said a word. Neither of us moved a muscle. The consultant's words hung in the air like a nuclear dust. We sat in suspended animation between everything our lives had been before this moment and everything they would become beyond it. My heart was pounding and my head started to bang. This was all too much. I'd known it was possible, but as long as there was a fraction of hope my symptoms could be something else, I was going to cling to it. But it really was Alzheimer's. First Mum, then Dad, now it was happening all over again – but this time to me. Martin spoke first. 'OK, right... Well, we need a bit of time to digest this.' 'Of course,' replied the doctor. I didn't say anything. I looked from Martin to the doctor as I felt my entire life seep away in this little office with the traffic roaring outside and people bustling up and down corridors, without their lives having just been shredded. I'm told the doctor said we should go home and try to live 'as normally as possible', but that they would continue to monitor me. We must have got up and left the office, trooped down the stairs and out on to the street, although it's all a blur. I'd only turned 61 at the start of that year. And, while I'd always thought I might get the disease one day, I didn't think that 'one day' would be 'today'. I guess no one ever does. We stood on the pavement in complete shock. Then Martin said: 'Right, well, shall we go and have a drink?' 'Yes, let's,' I replied. We walked across the road to a pub called The Queen's Larder. Martin fetched two glasses of wine while I sat fiddling with a bar mat and listening to two blokes discussing football while my life shattered into a million shards of pain. In those first few minutes, I was angry too. Really angry. After the worry of looking after Mum as she became lost in the confusion and terror of her Alzheimer's diagnosis and then the heartache of seeing my independent dad have his personality stripped away by the same disease, now it was coming for me. I know you're not supposed to ask, 'Why me?' – but seriously, 'Why me?' What had I done to deserve this? Martin brought the drinks over and we sat trying to make sense of what the doctor had just told us. He was so utterly shocked. 'What do we do now?' I asked. He probably hadn't any more idea than me but, despite years of independence, I needed to cling to him at that moment. Because if anyone knew what to do in a crisis it was Martin. I felt floored. Like I'd taken an enormous sucker punch to my gut and I was never getting up. And as for going home to live as 'normally as possible'. How? Nothing would ever be normal again. And yet, as the landlady collected glasses and wiped tables, office workers came in for pints of Guinness and the television in the corner showed the news, it felt like everything was the same for everyone except me. Martin and I made a pact that day that we wouldn't tell anyone what the consultant had said. 'I don't want anyone finding out, Martin,' I said. 'I don't want the boys knowing or worrying the way I did with my mum. I don't want them pussyfooting around or embarrassed to bring friends home. And I don't want people peering at me every time I go to the shop.' When you've lived a lot of your life in public by being on television, you become very conscious about which parts you want to keep for yourself. And I couldn't bear to be judged for having Alzheimer's. No one would ever admit to judging, but I saw it for myself when I was caring for Mum and Dad. People whisper or try to avoid someone who is struggling. I hated the thought of becoming an object of gossip or even pity. I could imagine some people I used to work with saying, 'Oh, have you heard about poor Fiona? What a tragedy!' So as the consultant suggested, we went home and lived 'as normally as possible'. The next morning, Martin went to work, as he always did. I got up, made a coffee then went for a walk, just as I always did. What else could we do? Lie on the floor, weeping? That wasn't going to change anything. We both had sleepless nights, but I sometimes also went for long periods not thinking about my diagnosis before the realisation would sweep over me like a tsunami. The anger came in waves too – the rage that I'd been chosen for this disease. In the months that followed, there were frequent trips to the hospital. After each, Martin and I popped into The Queen's Larder. It's a beautiful wood-panelled place and must be the last pub in London still serving Spam fritters. Some of the locals recognised me – they must have been GMTV fans back in the day – and we'd have great chats. After gloomy news at the hospital, it would lift my spirits. Martin spent hours googling new research and then, at the start of 2023, the consultant suggested I might be eligible for trials of a new drug to slow the advancement of Alzheimer's and maybe even reverse it. It was almost full, but they still needed one or two more people. There was no guarantee I'd be eligible, though, as you had to be at a particular stage of the disease – not too early but not too late either. To check, I had to go through a series of tests with questions such as, 'Which month is it?' and 'What season is it?' Getting the questions right was stressful because I was desperate to be chosen for the trial. When the hospital called a couple of weeks later to say I was suitable, I was elated. Now there was something to hope for again. After ensuring I was physically fit and healthy, the doctors sent us home with a bag of tiny syringes and phials of drugs to be administered three times a day. Martin would do the first injection before he went to work in the morning, then another as he got in in the late afternoon and a final one before bed. My poor tummy soon looked like a pin cushion. For the trial to work, half of us were on the actual new drug while the other half were on a placebo. I spent a lot of time wondering whether I was on the real drug or the fake one, but there was no way of finding out – even the doctors who handed the drugs out didn't know. I certainly felt OK during those first few months, I just hoped that was down to the miracle drug. I don't think I believed I'd be cured, but I hoped perhaps the illness could be slowed. The injections continued for a year. And apart from the endless stabbings to the stomach, we just got on with normal life. Or as normal as it could be. Sometimes I'd meet my friend Amanda at the coffee shop at the end of my road. It was my regular haunt where they knew my favourite drink – an oat-milk latte – and if I forgot things or became confused, which I don't think happened very often, they were understanding. Amanda and I would chat about life, but I didn't tell her about my diagnosis – I couldn't face it. With her I preferred to talk the way we'd always done. That summer of 2023, Martin and I were invited to watch the Grand Prix and to the Pride of Britain Awards and even managed to get in a couple of short breaks to our house in Italy, which I loved. It was so quiet and peaceful and I could sit in the shade and watch the world go by. But alongside the positive moments, there were some dark days too. Around then, doctors advised I should stop driving in case I hurt myself or someone else. I'd not been behind the wheel for months as the speed and stress of the roads had become overwhelming. After all those years of feeling so independent in my car – even bombing along the freeways when I lived in Los Angeles – I'd barely noticed my little Mini as it sat outside our house looking dusty and sad. Neither Martin nor I could face selling it, though – it felt a bit final. After a while, as with so many other things, I just forgot that I didn't drive any more. But I also couldn't face the thought of the Tube – crowds terrified me. So if I wanted to go farther afield – to get my hair cut or wander around the shops – I'd take the bus as I knew where to get on and off and it wasn't too busy. Mostly, though, I preferred staying closer to home and to walk wherever I needed to go. My lack of interest in food continued too. I couldn't face cooking any more, so Martin would make something when he got in from work. I'd never had an enormous appetite, but now it was less than ever. The thing that was most upsetting – and still is – was that I couldn't work. I didn't feel confident taking on TV work and whenever I tried to write my column for the Mirror newspaper, I couldn't. My contract was allowed to lapse on the promise that I'd return when I felt up to it. I couldn't bring myself to tell them that might never happen. Without work, I didn't feel like me. Feeling depressed is a very common side effect of Alzheimer's and let's face it, there's plenty to be depressed about. I put on a brave face if I met a friend for coffee or when the boys came in from work – I didn't want to drag everyone else down with me. But I was different with Martin. Martin got me at my lowest and moaniest and for that – and everything else – I appreciated him in a way I don't think I had ever done before. He was dedicated to administering the injections and attended every single hospital appointment. He'd been incredibly patient with me throughout our marriage – when I was rushing out in the morning to go to work leaving him with the kids, when I was very low during my final days at GMTV and keeping everything going at home when I was caring for my parents. He was still working – he had to work to pay the bills, and he loved work. But he still managed to make me feel entirely supported too. He'd always been a good husband, but this was something else. Have you or a loved one been affected by Alzheimer's? Share your story in the comments below. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Daily Mail
20 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Fiona Phillips hasn't cooked in two years and has no time for her dressing room full of fabulous designer clothes, heartbroken husband Martin Frizell reveals as TV star battles Alzheimer's
Fiona Phillips has not cooked in years and has no time for her dressing room of designer clothes as she battles Alzheimer's, her husband Martin Frizell has revealed. The former GMTV host, 64, was diagnosed with the brain disorder in 2022, aged just 61. It came after she left the former ITV breakfast show in 2008 to care for her father, who suffered from it too, dying in 2012, after her mother lost her life to it as well, in 2006. Her husband and former editor of This Morning Mr Frizell, 66, left the ITV chat show after ten years in February to care for Ms Phillips. She has now written a memoir, Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer's, with the help of her husband and journalist friend Alison Phillips, about her diagnosis. Ahead of its release on July 17, her husband has now spoken out about some of the most heartbreaking impacts of the disease. Mr Frizell said all her favourite hobbies and interests are now gone - she has not cooked in two years and wears the same T-shirt and trousers every day. He asked The Telegraph: 'What do I do with all these clothes?' And of her previously beloved cookery books, which now lay piled in the basement: 'Do I take them to the dump?... She's never going to open one again.' Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, an umbrella term for symptoms associated with ongoing brain function decline. It is a progressive condition, meaning symptoms and their severity develop gradually over years, affecting memory, thinking skills and other mental functions. There is currently no cure but there are medicines which can somewhat alleviate symptoms. In the UK, more than 70,000 people live with early-onset dementia and nearly a million live with dementia more broadly. Mr Frizell, who married Ms Phillips in 1997 and shares two children, Nathaniel, 26, and Mackenzie, 23, with her, started by contributing a few paragraphs to his wife's memoir. But he ended up generating more than 24,000 words as his anger about the lack of support for those with Alzheimer's and research about the disease. He recalled when she was diagnosed and given a leaflet on living with the disease that had a old couple with a Zimmer frame on it. It completely jarred with how young she was, having only just turned 61, Mr Frizell said: 'She was wearing skinny jeans and high-heeled boots. 'This was a degenerative disease for old people like the ones on the leaflet.' The couple first put her symptoms - brain fog, social withdrawal, mood swings, depression and anxiety - down to the menopause. But the change in Ms Phillips - previously always the life and soul of the party - was so stark, Mr Frizell knew at heart there had to be something more at play. Despite her family history of Alzheimer's, Ms Phillips' diagnosis is not genetic so cannot be passed to her sons - a relieving result of tests they had to wait an agonising two weeks for. She is instead 'predisposed' to it, a more common means of developing Alzheimer's than directly inheriting it. Factors that increase someone's predisposition to the disease include family history, the presence of certain genes and other health problems like diabetes, heart issues and high blood pressure. His wife has always been active - so Mr Frizell wondered if her diagnosis could have been caused by stress. At one point, during her turn on GMTV from 1993 to 2008, she was starting work at 3am, taking part in Strictly Come Dancing, bringing up her young sons, and caring for her parents, who lived far away in Wales. But he also thought it could be their lifestyle in their younger years - which saw them regularly drink a bottle of wine each every night. Mr Frizell said he feels guilty about this - as well as for taking his wife's place promoting the book, done only out of necessity as she is not well enough. He also feels bad about sometimes speaking about her in past tense - but the heartbreaking thing about dementia is it has seen her already gradually start to fade away. The pair met as roving reporters on GMTV, with Mr Frizell proposing after just four weeks. It was her genuine kindness, in the cut-throat world of reporting, that caught his eye - and the pair soon wed in Vegas. Mr Frizell, who has also edited GMTV and Loose Women, now cares for Ms Phillips full-time from their home in the Wandsworth area of south London. With needed breaks for podcasting and sailing and the help of his sons, he gets by. They briefly found a drug which stabilised her condition - albeit requiring him to inject her stomach three times per day - but its effects only lasted a year. She has now declined considerably over the last 12 months, needing help with basic tasks like brushing her teeth, developing more confusion, pain, delirium and psychosis and mostly staying inside It is hard sometimes, he says, to remain patient and calm when forced to repeat himself to her over and over again. 'I'm not going to be the Mother Teresa of Wandsworth', he said. But he insisted they are coping currently without professional help, with Fiona still having periods of being present, lucid and herself. She still, for instance, makes perceptive comments, or recalls lyrics from an old song, or remembers to water the plants. Her diagnosis has affected their shared life as a couple though, with many friends no longer inviting them out - and, on one occasion, actively moving tables at a cafe to avoid them. They are perhaps scared by the change in her, by their own mortality or by simply not knowing what to say, Mr Frizell ventured. The couple have never once discussed her having Alzheimer's explicitly since she was diagnosed - she knows the way it is going and it is too upsetting to be reminded. Its progress feels unstoppable, with the test for the disease 50 years old and the drugs the same as the ones her mother used before her death nearly 20 years ago, in 2006. Mr Frizell is determined, though, to not let those favourite interests of hers - of looking glamorous, of eating delicious food - to completely erode. He regularly helps her get her hair coloured and nails done. And the best thing his friends - afraid of getting it wrong - could do, he said, actually, is to cook for them, leaving something on the doorstep. It comes after Mr Frizell appeared on This Morning yesterday to tell hosts Alison Hammond, 50, and Dermot O'Leary, 52, about his wife's progress. The former editor shared some deeply sad details about how challenging family life has been since Fiona's diagnosis three years ago. He said: 'In the book, there's a picture of her at the end of our road, the most recent picture I took, only a few weeks ago. 'And she's looking great and she's smiling and she's got her coat on. And what you don't know is she thought I'd kidnapped her. This was us going out. 'Because you get delusions because you get so worked up. She keeps saying, "I want to go home".' Asked by Alison if she still recognises him, he said: 'She does recognise me most of the times. Doesn't quite know that I'm her husband but she knows who I am.' Martin shared another heartbreaking detail too: 'Every now and then, she'll want to go home to her parents and I haven't got the heart to say they aren't here.' He explained how he copes with this instead: 'You say, "Let's get our coats on, let's get our shoes on", we go out, go round the block a couple of times and come back in. And she says, "Oh, I'm home now".' What is Alzheimer's? Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain, in which build-up of abnormal proteins causes nerve cells to die. This disrupts the transmitters that carry messages, and causes the brain to shrink. More than 5 million people suffer from the disease in the US, where it is the 6th leading cause of death, and more than 1 million Britons have it. WHAT HAPPENS? As brain cells die, the functions they provide are lost. That includes memory, orientation and the ability to think and reason. The progress of the disease is slow and gradual. On average, patients live five to seven years after diagnosis, but some may live for ten to 15 years. EARLY SYMPTOMS: Loss of short-term memory Disorientation Behavioral changes Mood swings Difficulties dealing with money or making a phone call LATER SYMPTOMS: Severe memory loss, forgetting close family members, familiar objects or places Becoming anxious and frustrated over inability to make sense of the world, leading to aggressive behavior Eventually lose ability to walk May have problems eating The majority will eventually need 24-hour care
Telegraph
a day ago
- Lifestyle
- Telegraph
Fiona Phillips's husband on her life with Alzheimer's: ‘Bit by bit, she's not there'
Martin Frizell cannot decide what to do with his wife Fiona Phillips's recipe books. Or her designer clothes. Before she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2022, at the age of 61, the former breakfast television presenter adored cooking. She loved dressing up in glamorous outfits. But all that's gone along with her short-term memory. 'Fiona hasn't cooked in two years,' explains Frizell, the former editor of ITV's This Morning. 'Part of the heartache now is she's got this dressing room full of the most amazing clothes but this horrible disease means she's more than happy just wearing the same T-shirt, the same trousers, the same thing – day in, day out. She doesn't really have much appetite for all those fabulous things in her wardrobe.' He pauses. 'What do I do with all these clothes? It's things like cookery books as well. I've got a pile on the floor downstairs in our basement that are never going to see the light of day again. Do I take them to the dump? They're all Fiona's cookery books, but she's never going to open one again.' It is these sorts of mundane domestic details that shine a light on what it's really like to live with Alzheimer's – the most common cause of dementia in the UK. Not the statistic, scary though it may be, that one in three people born today is projected to develop dementia in their lifetime, according to Alzheimer's Research UK. Nor the knowledge that this is 'a progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, eventually impacting the ability to carry out even simple tasks'. Nothing you can google on Alzheimer's will ever do justice to what Fiona and her family are going through right now. The unvarnished truth is laid bare in the GMTV star's brave new book, Remember When: My Life with Alzheimer's, which she has written with the help of Martin and the journalist Alison Phillips (no relation, the former editor of the Daily Mirror for whom Fiona wrote a column for more than a decade). Martin, 66, who married Fiona, 64, in 1997, had intended to write 'a few paragraphs' filling in the gaps in his beloved wife's failing memory – and then, he admits, anger started bubbling to the surface. 'I ended up doing 24,000 words,' he sighs. 'I started off writing about what a great woman she is and just how horrible it is and dreadfully unlucky that she is the latest in the long line of her family to get it. Then I just got very angry as to what little support there is. You realise that there's about 70,000 people who have early-onset Alzheimer's, a million or so roughly in the country who have Alzheimer's, and you realise that there's not a lot of help out there. As a family, we just kind of get through it and at some point we will need more support, but there's just nothing really.' Recalling the 'dreadful' day Fiona was diagnosed, he continues: 'We went to [the hospital] to get the results of tests, and the consultant said: 'I'm sorry, but I believe it's Alzheimer's.' And it's like, oh. Gulp. Then he said, 'I'll go and get you a cup of tea, here's some reading for you.' He pushed a leaflet across the table and on the front cover was an old couple, with a Zimmer frame, basically saying: 'How to live well with Alzheimer's.' It just doesn't relate to you.' As Martin recalls in the book: 'Fiona had just turned 61. She was wearing skinny jeans and high-heeled boots. This was a degenerative disease for old people like the ones on the leaflet – it shouldn't be happening to someone as young as Fiona. It was utterly gut-wrenching. Sickening. We just looked at each other. S--t! What are we going to do now?' Despite nursing both her mother, Amy, and her father, Neville (known as Phil), through Alzheimer's, the diagnosis came as a complete shock to Fiona, who had been putting her symptoms down to the menopause. As well as suffering from 'brain fog', she had become increasingly withdrawn, depressed and, at times, crippled by anxiety. But having watched all this unfold in his once-gregarious, socially confident wife, Martin saw the diagnosis coming. 'Fiona was the life and soul of the party. I mean, she had no off switch, which was the thing I loved about her, even though it could be infuriating at times. She'd stay there until the end of anything and drink everything until the end. 'She loved life, and to gradually see this person becoming more withdrawn and then just being frightened about the slightest thing, getting really worked up about immaterial matters, which had never happened before, was really upsetting for all of us. 'I'd seen her decline, a change in behaviour and mood swings. I knew it had to be more than brain fog or menopause; that it had to be something quite big. So, I kind of knew it was coming to a degree, but even when it does come, it's still awful.' If finding out the news they had been dreading weren't bad enough, they then had to endure an anxious two-week wait to discover whether it was genetic – and could be passed on to their sons, Nat, 26, and Mackenzie, 23. 'Luckily, the blood test came back negative. The consultant said: 'The good news is it's not hereditary, your children don't have to worry about that.' I said, 'But how do you explain her parents and her getting it?' and the phrase he used is that she was just 'predisposed' to it. But I still don't understand what that means.' While most cases of Alzheimer's are not directly inherited, certain factors can increase a person's predisposition to the disease. These include family history, genetic factors such as the APOE gene, and other health conditions such as diabetes, heart problems and high blood pressure. Having read about the hectic life Fiona led in the 1990s and 2000s – juggling 3am starts for GMTV as a mother of young children while caring for both parents, who lived miles away in Wales – I wonder whether stress may have been a contributing factor. The pressure hit fever pitch in 2005 when Eamonn Holmes exited the show, leaving Fiona as the main presenter. She also participated in the third series of Strictly Come Dancing that year. 'It could be stress but she was always very fit. They never quite know what the cause is, but they say that some bad habits could lead to Alzheimer's. 'Hands up, we have lived life – not to the extremes – but we lived well. In our younger days, we would do a bottle of wine at night… each. That's all gone now but I don't really want to spend too much time on it because then I just feel guilty myself that I should have done more.' Guilt features a lot in our interview. As Martin and I chat in the studio of my Telegraph podcast, The Daily T, he apologises for his wife's absence. 'She would love to have been here herself but you know, she's not in the best place.' Then he apologises that he is here in her place: 'It's not my book,' he insists. 'It's Fiona's. I'm just here to spread the word.' He also clearly feels bad for sometimes speaking about his wife in the past tense, but as he puts it, he is 'living with grief on a daily basis' for the woman he has lost. 'It's like someone has passed because bit by bit, she's not there. One bit will come back and then another bit will go. It's really tough.' The couple – who first met when they were both working as roving reporters for GMTV, which Martin would also go on to edit – married in Las Vegas in 1997. They dated for just four weeks before the softly spoken Scotsman proposed. 'She had been the LA correspondent, working in Hollywood and then when Anthea Turner left, there was talk of who was going to replace her. Fiona didn't think for a second that she was in with a chance and then they chose her to sit alongside Eamonn and she came back. We got to know each other a bit more; we went to Ascot one day, as you do in daytime television, and then we went for a bit of late lunch and that was it, really.' What was it about Fiona that made him propose within a month? 'Well, she's the nicest person I've ever met. In the catty, backstabbing, tough old world of journalism that we grew up in, not everyone's nice, but she wasn't just a journalist, she was honestly the nicest person. She never had a bad word to say about anyone. 'She used to infuriate me because she would take as much time as was needed to say hello to people. She was always getting stopped. She was a lot more generous with her time than I ever was.' Now, almost all of Martin's time is spent looking after Fiona at their home in Wandsworth, south London, with brief respites for work and sailing (he part-owns two boats moored in Hampshire). 'When she was diagnosed, people would say: 'And how are you?' And I'd say, 'Well, listen, don't worry about me. I'm not the one that's got Alzheimer's.' You feel selfish but you do have to find time for yourself. You do have to find that escape route that gives you a chance just to charge your batteries for the next bit.' Martin left This Morning after 10 years at the helm in February and is now balancing a true crime podcast project with his caring for his wife with the help of Nat, who is in the Army, and Mackenzie, who works in fashion but still lives at home. Soon after she was diagnosed, Fiona was placed on a drug trial that required Martin to inject her in the stomach three times a day. Both felt that it helped to stabilise her condition – but it lasted only a year. As Martin concedes: 'There's no magic pill that's going to stop it.' Although Fiona still has moments of lucidity, she has deteriorated over the course of the past 12 months and now needs help with even the most basic of tasks, including brushing her teeth. 'If you look back over the last five years, for the first four, she was still very present and here with us. So I didn't feel I was losing her from day one. But recently, she's been in quite a lot of pain. With Alzheimer's come all sorts of secondary complications – and that then adds to the confusion. The past 12 months have been particularly difficult, not just for her, but for us as well, trying to find a way through what's causing the pain for her. And with pain comes delirium; even more psychotic kinds of episodes that are frightening for all of us.' Martin does not hold back in the book about just how hard it has been. He writes: 'Anyone who thinks they could endlessly explain the same thing over and over again without ever becoming frustrated or losing their patience just needs to try it. Not once, not now and again, but every single day.' He explains: 'Sometimes, you wonder, is it just attention-seeking that's going on? Like, can you really not see that that's a toothbrush and that's what you do with it? Can you really not? 'When I left This Morning, the press said, 'Oh, he's leaving to care for his wife.' I made it quite obvious to anybody who wanted to listen that I'm not going to be the Mother Teresa of Wandsworth. I'm not the Archangel Gabriel. I have my moments and it's frustrating. Once I realise I'm reaching the limit, I take myself off into another room and I'll almost feign being ill myself and say, 'I really feel awful, I've got to lie down.' And all of a sudden, this maternal thing kicks in. How can I help? What do you need? And she will leave me. It's back to the old Fiona again.' What they never do, though, is discuss the fact that Fiona has Alzheimer's. As Martin writes in the book: 'We have not once discussed her illness since her diagnosis.' Really? 'She's obviously always thinking about it subconsciously, but if you mention the word Alzheimer's or dementia, it brings it to the front and it's upsetting because she knows the way it's going. Both parents died from it. She was an ambassador for Alzheimer's charities.' While Fiona has chosen to isolate herself, spending a great deal of time indoors, Martin has been upset by how socially isolated they have been made to feel as a couple. 'You become almost invisible,' he says. 'We didn't go to lots of dinner parties, but we went to a few. They all dry up. 'We still have some close friends, which is great. But I think people think, oh gosh, Fiona, maybe she doesn't look the same, or they don't know what to say, or it brings into sharp focus their own mortality. So you don't get invited out much.' He recalls 'one of the saddest occasions' when a couple they knew physically got up and took their coffees outside when they saw Martin and Fiona sit down next to them in the local café. 'People don't know how to approach or converse with people who have dementia.' He adds that the best thing anyone can do to support a family struggling with Alzheimer's is to cook for them. 'Just leave something on the doorstep and walk away.' Another low was when This Morning 's former presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were embroiled in a row about jumping the queue to visit the late Queen lying in state in 2022. 'At the time, Fiona was still going out to the shops and things and she was chased down the road by journalists, asking what I knew about it all. And, she didn't know, she was confused about it and it didn't help.' That was a year before they made Fiona's diagnosis public in July 2023. The saddest part of all is that there is little that Martin – or anyone – can do to stop the progression of the disease. 'Just as the cognitive test for Alzheimer's is 50 years old, so are the treatments,' he says. 'She's on pretty much the same drugs as her mum was, and she died in 2006. ' Cancer seems to get all of the attention and all of the research money.' Although the day will inevitably come when Fiona will need professional care, Martin insists they're coping. 'For periods, she is still physically present. And I'd argue for anyone to meet her in the street on a good day, she'll look just the way she was. We are determined that it's going to remain that way. So she's got her hair appointment in a few days' time. She gets her hair coloured every few months. I'm a bit lax – I've got to get her manicure and pedicure done, but it's really important. She's a very dignified woman. 'And she still amazes me. You'll be having what you think is just another wretched day and then you'll be watching something or talking about something and she'll come out with an observation that is absolutely of the moment. Sometimes her memory is better than mine in terms of what happened five years ago. Or if I put some music on, she'll know all the lyrics. 'We have this orchid that someone gave us. It was about six months ago. I looked at it this morning and it's got five blooming flowers on it. Now I haven't touched it. The children haven't touched it. We have a cleaner that comes in once a week. She hasn't touched it. So I can only presume that Fiona has.' Pointing to his head, he adds: 'Somewhere in there, you know, she has got the exact quantity of water that these things need to keep going and flourishing. I've never seen anything like it. It's the most astonishing, beautiful orchid. So yes, parts of her are closing down but she's still in there. She's still with us.' Fiona Phillips: 'After my diagnosis I put on a brave face for everyone - except Martin' Extracted from Remember When: My Life with Alzheimer's, by Fiona Phillips (Macmillan, £22), out July 17 It was a sunny morning in May 2022 when we drove once more to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, near London's Russell Square. It's a hugely impressive place – part of UCLH and the home of some of Britain's leading research into the nervous system and brain. As we waited in the reception area, doctors in white coats were swishing up and down and it all seemed so calm and methodical. I was desperately anxious and kept fidgeting while everything around me appeared so still and controlled. After a short while, Martin and I were called into the office of my consultant. He smiled and invited us to sit down. He looked very serious, but then he always did. Martin and I sat making small talk about the weather as I scanned the desk for anything that might give a glimpse as to what was coming. 'Yes, so your results are back,' he said slowly. 'And I'm afraid to tell you that you do have early-onset Alzheimer's disease.' Neither Martin nor I said a word. Neither of us moved a muscle. The consultant's words hung in the air like a nuclear dust. We sat in suspended animation between everything our lives had been before this moment and everything they would become beyond it. My heart was pounding and my head started to bang. This was all too much. I'd known it was possible, but as long as there was a fraction of hope my symptoms could be something else, I was going to cling to it. But it really was Alzheimer's. First Mum, then Dad, now it was happening all over again – but this time to me. Martin spoke first. 'OK, right... Well, we need a bit of time to digest this.' 'Of course,' replied the doctor. I didn't say anything. I looked from Martin to the doctor as I felt my entire life seep away in this little office with the traffic roaring outside and people bustling up and down corridors, without their lives having just been shredded. I'm told the doctor said we should go home and try to live 'as normally as possible', but that they would continue to monitor me. We must have got up and left the office, trooped down the stairs and out on to the street, although it's all a blur. I'd only turned 61 at the start of that year. And, while I'd always thought I might get the disease one day, I didn't think that 'one day' would be 'today'. I guess no one ever does. We stood on the pavement in complete shock. Then Martin said: 'Right, well, shall we go and have a drink?' 'Yes, let's,' I replied. We walked across the road to a pub called The Queen's Larder. Martin fetched two glasses of wine while I sat fiddling with a bar mat and listening to two blokes discussing football while my life shattered into a million shards of pain. In those first few minutes, I was angry too. Really angry. After the worry of looking after Mum as she became lost in the confusion and terror of her Alzheimer's diagnosis and then the heartache of seeing my independent dad have his personality stripped away by the same disease, now it was coming for me. I know you're not supposed to ask, 'Why me?' – but seriously, 'Why me?' What had I done to deserve this? Martin brought the drinks over and we sat trying to make sense of what the doctor had just told us. He was so utterly shocked. 'What do we do now?' I asked. He probably hadn't any more idea than me but, despite years of independence, I needed to cling to him at that moment. Because if anyone knew what to do in a crisis it was Martin. I felt floored. Like I'd taken an enormous sucker punch to my gut and I was never getting up. And as for going home to live as 'normally as possible'. How? Nothing would ever be normal again. And yet, as the landlady collected glasses and wiped tables, office workers came in for pints of Guinness and the television in the corner showed the news, it felt like everything was the same for everyone except me. Martin and I made a pact that day that we wouldn't tell anyone what the consultant had said. 'I don't want anyone finding out, Martin,' I said. 'I don't want the boys knowing or worrying the way I did with my mum. I don't want them pussyfooting around or embarrassed to bring friends home. And I don't want people peering at me every time I go to the shop.' When you've lived a lot of your life in public by being on television, you become very conscious about which parts you want to keep for yourself. And I couldn't bear to be judged for having Alzheimer's. No one would ever admit to judging, but I saw it for myself when I was caring for Mum and Dad. People whisper or try to avoid someone who is struggling. I hated the thought of becoming an object of gossip or even pity. I could imagine some people I used to work with saying, 'Oh, have you heard about poor Fiona? What a tragedy!' So as the consultant suggested, we went home and lived 'as normally as possible'. The next morning, Martin went to work, as he always did. I got up, made a coffee then went for a walk, just as I always did. What else could we do? Lie on the floor, weeping? That wasn't going to change anything. We both had sleepless nights, but I sometimes also went for long periods not thinking about my diagnosis before the realisation would sweep over me like a tsunami. The anger came in waves too – the rage that I'd been chosen for this disease. In the months that followed, there were frequent trips to the hospital. After each, Martin and I popped into The Queen's Larder. It's a beautiful wood-panelled place and must be the last pub in London still serving Spam fritters. Some of the locals recognised me – they must have been GMTV fans back in the day – and we'd have great chats. After gloomy news at the hospital, it would lift my spirits. Martin spent hours googling new research and then, at the start of 2023, the consultant suggested I might be eligible for trials of a new drug to slow the advancement of Alzheimer's and maybe even reverse it. It was almost full, but they still needed one or two more people. There was no guarantee I'd be eligible, though, as you had to be at a particular stage of the disease – not too early but not too late either. To check, I had to go through a series of tests with questions such as, 'Which month is it?' and 'What season is it?' Getting the questions right was stressful because I was desperate to be chosen for the trial. When the hospital called a couple of weeks later to say I was suitable, I was elated. Now there was something to hope for again. After ensuring I was physically fit and healthy, the doctors sent us home with a bag of tiny syringes and phials of drugs to be administered three times a day. Martin would do the first injection before he went to work in the morning, then another as he got in in the late afternoon and a final one before bed. My poor tummy soon looked like a pin cushion. For the trial to work, half of us were on the actual new drug while the other half were on a placebo. I spent a lot of time wondering whether I was on the real drug or the fake one, but there was no way of finding out – even the doctors who handed the drugs out didn't know. I certainly felt OK during those first few months, I just hoped that was down to the miracle drug. I don't think I believed I'd be cured, but I hoped perhaps the illness could be slowed. The injections continued for a year. And apart from the endless stabbings to the stomach, we just got on with normal life. Or as normal as it could be. Sometimes I'd meet my friend Amanda at the coffee shop at the end of my road. It was my regular haunt where they knew my favourite drink – an oat-milk latte – and if I forgot things or became confused, which I don't think happened very often, they were understanding. Amanda and I would chat about life, but I didn't tell her about my diagnosis – I couldn't face it. With her I preferred to talk the way we'd always done. That summer of 2023, Martin and I were invited to watch the Grand Prix and to the Pride of Britain Awards and even managed to get in a couple of short breaks to our house in Italy, which I loved. It was so quiet and peaceful and I could sit in the shade and watch the world go by. But alongside the positive moments, there were some dark days too. Around then, doctors advised I should stop driving in case I hurt myself or someone else. I'd not been behind the wheel for months as the speed and stress of the roads had become overwhelming. After all those years of feeling so independent in my car – even bombing along the freeways when I lived in Los Angeles – I'd barely noticed my little Mini as it sat outside our house looking dusty and sad. Neither Martin nor I could face selling it, though – it felt a bit final. After a while, as with so many other things, I just forgot that I didn't drive any more. But I also couldn't face the thought of the Tube – crowds terrified me. So if I wanted to go farther afield – to get my hair cut or wander around the shops – I'd take the bus as I knew where to get on and off and it wasn't too busy. Mostly, though, I preferred staying closer to home and to walk wherever I needed to go. My lack of interest in food continued too. I couldn't face cooking any more, so Martin would make something when he got in from work. I'd never had an enormous appetite, but now it was less than ever. The thing that was most upsetting – and still is – was that I couldn't work. I didn't feel confident taking on TV work and whenever I tried to write my column for the Mirror newspaper, I couldn't. My contract was allowed to lapse on the promise that I'd return when I felt up to it. I couldn't bring myself to tell them that might never happen. Without work, I didn't feel like me. Feeling depressed is a very common side effect of Alzheimer's and let's face it, there's plenty to be depressed about. I put on a brave face if I met a friend for coffee or when the boys came in from work – I didn't want to drag everyone else down with me. But I was different with Martin. Martin got me at my lowest and moaniest and for that – and everything else – I appreciated him in a way I don't think I had ever done before. He was dedicated to administering the injections and attended every single hospital appointment. He'd been incredibly patient with me throughout our marriage – when I was rushing out in the morning to go to work leaving him with the kids, when I was very low during my final days at GMTV and keeping everything going at home when I was caring for my parents. He was still working – he had to work to pay the bills, and he loved work. But he still managed to make me feel entirely supported too. He'd always been a good husband, but this was something else.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Alzheimer's made Fiona Phillips think her husband was kidnapper
Former GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips thought her husband had kidnapped her because of 'delusions' brought on by Alzheimer's disease. The Kent-born journalist, 64, announced in 2023 that she had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, after initially thinking she was having menopause symptoms when she first started experiencing 'brain fog and anxiety'. With the help of her husband Martin Frizell, the former This Morning editor, she has since written a memoir titled Remember When, which aims to help others who have been diagnosed with the disease. Mr Frizell, 66, offered an update on Phillips's condition on Friday, recounting that at times she does not remember that he is her husband. Speaking on ITV's This Morning, Mr Frizell said: 'She'd love to be here, but she's got anxiety. She's got a kind of secondary problem that causes her to be in pain, a lot, a lot of pain, which adds to the confusion. So it's difficult. 'In the book, there's a picture of her at the end of our road, picking the most recent picture I took, only a few weeks ago, and she's looking great, and she's kind of smiling, and she's got a coat on and what you don't know is, she thought I'd kidnapped her.' He explained that the condition causes 'all sort of delusions', adding that Phillips would get 'kind of worked up'. Mr Frizell said: 'She does recognise me most of the time. Doesn't quite know that I'm her husband, but she knows who I am. 'On these occasions, and it's not frequent, but every now and then, she'll want to go home to her parents. I haven't got the heart to say they aren't here. 'What you do is, you say, 'Let's get our coats on, let's get our shoes on', we go up around the block a couple of times and come back in. And she says, 'Oh, I'm home now'.' Alzheimer's is described as the most common cause of dementia, which is a syndrome associated with an ongoing decline in brain function, according to the NHS website. It is a 'progressive condition' that can affect memory, thinking skills and other mental abilities, with symptoms developing gradually over many years and which often become more severe. There is currently no cure for Alzheimer's disease, but there are medicines available that can temporarily improve some symptoms. Mr Frizell said: 'Society has decided we're not going to take it as seriously as we should. The money that's there for Alzheimer's research, it's like buying a Starbucks cup of coffee, basically trying to fight a disease. It's impossible.' He also said the pair had conversations early on about Phillips giving him lasting power of attorney to ensure that if she cannot make health or financial decisions for herself, then he can on her behalf. Despite this, Mr Frizell said he has been accused by some banks or utility groups of trying to 'win one over on' Phillips. He said: 'There's [sic] two types. There's health and finance, but it gives me control of those things. If she's not able to make decisions for herself, then I have the power of attorney to do it on her behalf. 'Pretty much everyone, banks, utilities, should accept that – most of them do. There's one or two, I'm not going to name them, who actually are accusing me of well, actually, maybe you're trying to sort of win one over on. This needs a bit more evidence. 'I'm thinking, what evidence do you need? But by and large, LPA (lasting power of attorney) is a must for folks. Once you get to your 50s, you should definitely get it.' 'Family priorities to change' Mr Frizell announced in November that he was stepping down as the editor of This Morning, after a decade in the post, saying he was expecting 'family priorities to change' and needed to free up time for them. He oversaw the long-running morning show as it won numerous awards, including a Bafta and seven National Television Awards. Phillips is best known for presenting GMTV from 1993 to 2008, before going on to head up several documentaries and episodes of Panorama. She quit TV in 2018 after she started to suffer from anxiety and was also one of the Mirror's longest-serving columnists. Phillips cared for her parents after both of them were also diagnosed with the condition and has made two documentaries about the disease, one in 2009 called Mum, Dad, Alzheimer's And Me, about her family's history of dementia, and My Family And Alzheimer's in 2010.
