CMU School of Drama


Thursday, December 29, 2016

Carey Mulligan Wants to Spread Awareness About Dementia

The Mary Sue: Anyone who’s seen their loved ones suffer from dementia know how painful and devastating those symptoms can be, something Carey Mulligan recently opened up about to start a larger dialogue of awareness and understanding.

As a guest host on BBC Radio 4‘s Best of Today, Mulligan talked about her 91-year-old grandma Nans, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2004. The actress described family visits to her grandma’s assisted living home in Wales and how they can be both heartbreaking and “magical,” especially when they share music her grandma taught her as a child.

1 comment:

madeleine wester said...

I'm excited to see celebrities and others discussing dementia and alzheimer's publicly. My grandmother suffered from alzheimer's disease and it was an extremely traumatic event for our entire family. I feel lucky that my grandmother suffered from alzheimer's for a fairly short amount of time and that my cousin and I were too young to remember the pain my mother and aunt felt during this time. Dementia and alzheimer's are often not discussed in media since it is so difficult to portray the trauma caused by these terrible illnesses. However, the more we talk about alzheimer's and dementia and what they entail, the more we can socially understand and empathize with those affected. Mulligan is right; dementia and it's effects could be considered worse than death. To forget yourself, your family, and your life is something that no one should ever go through or have to watch. But since these diseases do not have a cure, the most important thing we can do is continue to have people such as Mulligan and others raise awareness for the them.