The real-life dementia signs Debbie from Coronation Street has shown
Warning: The article contains spoilers for Friday night's episode of Coronation Street.
Tonight on Coronation Street, Debbie Webster's loved ones will finally learn she has been diagnosed with young onset dementia, following a series of concerning symptoms.
Played by Sue Devaney, Debbie, 56, was diagnosed earlier this year after she began experiencing forgetfulness. Despite these signs, she kept her diagnosis a secret, but her condition has become increasingly difficult to hide. Her behaviour has become increasingly erratic, including mood swings and alarming blackouts.
The storyline was developed with guidance from Dementia UK, which also advised EastEnders on a similar plot involving Nigel Bates (Paul Bradley), to ensure an accurate portrayal.
According to the charity, young onset dementia affects those under 65 and impacts approximately 70,800 people in the UK, roughly 7.5% of the estimated 944,000 living with dementia.
Experts Hannah Gardner, a dementia specialist and admiral nurse for Dementia UK, and Professor Paresh Malhotra, group leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute, say Debbie's storyline accurately sheds light on the experience of younger individuals with dementia.
Speaking to Yahoo UK, Professor Malhotra explains that dementia affects a person's ability to carry out everyday tasks due to problems with cognitive processing. This can include difficulties with managing finances, using a computer or navigating familiar places. In Debbie's case, she has been making mistakes at work.
"Sometimes we all have the occasional lapse where we forget something we've said, or we forget something we've heard," he explains. "But it's when people start to have increasing difficulty doing the things that they've always been able to do, and increasing difficulty taking on new tasks, when it's more likely that there's a brain condition underlying."
Professor Malhotra says people may struggle planning a complicated meal, hosting friends and organising a holiday. If someone is experiencing younger onset dementia, they often struggle with tasks associated with work, such as setting up a new phone or email address.
He adds: "So whether it's to do with planning, whether it's to do with concentration, whether it's to do with the ability to come up with the right word, these are all things that can be affected."
Gardner agrees, explaining how people may have concentration problems as well as difficulty making decisions and "slower thought processing." She says: "So if someone asks someone a question, it can take longer for them to process and respond."
Debbie's first sign of trouble came when she booked theatre tickets for herself and her then partner, Ronnie Bailey (Vinta Morgan), forgetting he already had plans. Her increasing forgetfulness soon led to misplaced items and missed appointments. According to Professor Malhotra, forgetfulness is one of the most common and recognisable early symptoms of dementia.
"People won't remember having spoken to someone recently. They won't remember having organised to meet at the pub on a particular day, or that they plan to go to the cinema or that they agreed to do something at work," he says.
"So it often shows itself in something having gone wrong, or not having recalled something important for carrying out a task."
Gardner explains that this forgetfulness can permeate throughout different aspects of someone's life, adding: "It could be forgetting recent events, misplacing items or putting them in the wrong place, forgetting appointments, forgetting to do things and forgetting names of people, objects and places. It could also be struggling to find the right word and repeating themselves."
In Wednesday night's episode, Debbie's distress escalated when she confronted 16-year-old Brody Michaelis (Ryan Mulvey) and a friend drinking at the hotel she manages. When Brody refused to show his ID, Debbie lashed out, smashing their beer bottles and demanding they leave.
Professor Malhotra says people don't bring up mood changes and aggressiveness as much as they should, considering they can be early symptoms, especially for young onset dementia.
"People can often be misdiagnosed with depression or anxiety in the year or two beforehand, and it's part of the onset, as it expresses itself through mood swings and behavioural changes," he shares.
Gardner says that people can also often be misdiagnosed with anxiety or menopause, which causes a delay in a dementia diagnosis.
"You don't expect someone in their 50s to have dementia if there's no family history, you put it down to the pressures of work, the changes in women, a mental breakdown. But with Dementia UK, we're trying to raise awareness," she explains.
Since her diagnosis, Debbie has experienced blackouts. In young onset dementia, these cognitive blackouts can involve periods of amnesia, disorientation, or confusion. Professor Malhotra notes that such episodes may also occur in specific types, like Lewy body dementia.
"Some types of dementia are associated with epileptic seizures, which are essentially blackouts,' he says. 'And in other conditions, blackouts can also occur, so these more physical symptoms can sometimes be part of the diseases that cause dementia."
Gardner explains that "dementia isn't a disease itself, it's a symptom." It results from various underlying conditions, with Alzheimer's disease being the most common cause. Other major types include vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, and frontotemporal dementia.
If you need advice or support on living with dementia, contact Dementia UK's Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline on 0800 888 6678 or email helpline@dementiauk.org.
You can also book a free video or phone appointment to get expert dementia support from an Admiral Nurse at dementiauk.org/appointment.
Read more about dementia:
Study reveals how long people with dementia live after diagnosis (PA Media, 4-min read)
'I answer dozens of calls about dementia a day - here are 7 things most people ask' (Surrey Live, 4-min read)
8 things you can do to cut your risk of dementia (Yahoo Life UK, 2-min read)
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