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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Sonia Sodha

Will this brutally honest look at dementia finally get us talking or will we turn away?

A screenshot shows a vivacious younger woman with the caption 'Mum died as a fashionista'.
The Alzheimer’s Society advert portrays the ‘long goodbye’ to relatives with dementia. Photograph: Alzheimer’s Society

We see a man giving a speech at his mother’s wake. It starts off as you might expect. But he goes on to tell us how his mother died multiple times in the eyes of those who loved her. When she became convinced her friends were stealing from her. When she asked him, her son, what his name was. When she looked straight through his dad. Then he says she died a final time surrounded by the people who loved her.

This is the latest ad from the Alzheimer’s Society. Anna had dementia. At the end, a voiceover from Colin Firth tells us: “With dementia, you don’t just die once, you die again, and again, and again. Which is why at Alzheimer’s Society, we’ll be with you again, and again, and again.”

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