Fiona Phillips is filming a documentary about the daily struggles of living with Alzheimer’s as TV star, 62, says she hopes she can help find a cure for the disease which has ‘ravaged my family and now come for me’
- The documentary will start filming later this year, touching on the hope of a cure
Fiona Phillips is filming a documentary about living with Alzheimer’s amid hopes she can help find a cure for the disease which has ‘ravaged my family and now come for me’.
The ITV documentary will also look into the ground-breaking drug trial which has sparked hopes of finding more effective treatment for the degenerative illness.
With filming set to start later this year, the programme will explore the presenter’s mental and physical health in the wake of her diagnosis, as well as her hope linked to being part of a drug trial.
According to The Mirror, Ms Phillips, 62, said: ‘I want to go out and I want to work. I’ve just got to get on with it. I mean, what’s the alternative, to lie down and give up?’
The trial Ms Phillips is currently on is for a drug called miridesap – which is hoped could slow or even reverse the illness. It is not know if she is being given the drug or a placebo as part of the trial.
Earlier this month, Ms Phillips told the Mirror she had received the news of the devastating dementia disease, which killed both her parents, around a year ago, having suffered from months of brain fog and anxiety.
TV presenter Fiona Phillips is filming an ITV documentary about living with Alzheimer’s
With filming set to start later this year, the programme will explore the presenter’s mental and physical health in the wake of her diagnosis, as well as her hope linked to being part of a drug trial
The documentary will also look into the ground-breaking drug trial which has sparked hopes of finding a ‘cure’ for the degenerative illness
The former GMTV host said the diagnosis was ‘heartbreaking’, continuing: ‘It’s a b****y horrible’ secret to share.
She is currently being supported by her husband, TV’s This Morning editor Martin Frizell, 64, who she married in 1997. He said: ‘Tragically Fiona’s family has been riddled with it [Alzheimer’s].’
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They are parents to Nat, 24, and Mackenzie, 21. Until this month, the couple had not told their children directly that their mother has Alzheimer’s.
The drug trial she is on is at University College Hospital in London – but with half the participants receiving a placebo, it is impossible to know whether she is actually being given the drug.
Her husband said he believes her condition is ‘stabilising’, but admitted this could be ‘wishful thinking’.
The couple explained how Ms Phillips originally saw the onset of severe anxiety, which she believed was related to the Menopause.
But after symptoms such as brain fog continued despite the use of HRT, she went for further testing which ultimately ended in diagnosis with Alzheimer’s.
The former breakfast TV host insisted she is ‘still here’, adding: ‘This disease has ravaged my family and now it has come for me. And all over the country there are people of all different ages whose lives are being affected by it – it’s heartbreaking.
‘I just hope I can help find a cure which might make things better for others in the future.’
‘It’s something I might have thought I’d get at 80’, she said. ‘But I was still only 61 years old.
‘I felt more angry than anything else because this disease has already impacted my life in so many ways; my poor mum was crippled with it, then my dad, my grandparents, my uncle. It just keeps coming back for us.’
Her father Neville died in February 2012, while her mother Amy passed away with the disease in May 2006.
Ms Phillips has frequently spoken out about the disease and campaigned for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
She told The Mirror: ‘I need to sort out an action plan that can be used if I ‘disappear’… Of course I fear inheriting the disease with my family history, and I sometimes wake up in the night feeling anxious and worried about it.
Fiona Williams pictured with her father, Neville, who died from the disease in 2012
Ms Phillips presented GMTV for more than a decade before leaving the show (pictured: Ms Phillips alongside Eamonn Holmes)
‘My parents were relatively young when they got it; my mum was in her early 50s, although at the time, we just put it down to her being eccentric.’
Ms Phillips began her journalistic career working as a reporter for local radio stations such as Radio Mercury un Sussex and County Sound in Surrey.
Her big break came when she moved to GMTV as an entertainment correspondent in 1993, before being promoted to be their LA correspondent in December the same year.
She then fronted the breakfast show from 1997 to 2008, being the main anchor every Monday to Wednesday.
Ms Phillips announced in 2008 she would be leaving the show for family reasons, presenting her last show in December.
This followed the death of her mother, and came after her father had also been diagnosed with the disease.
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