Sir Tony Robinson reveals he lives in ‘constant terror’ of losing his memory to Alzheimer’s
The actor said he fears the worst after both his parents died from the disease
SIR Tony Robinson has admitted he lives in "constant terror" of developing Alzheimer's after it killed both his parents.
The 70-year-old Blackadder star says he fears the worst every time he forgets something and thinks "Oh God, it's started".
Many experts believe dementia, which has now overtaken heart disease as Britain's biggest killer, is hereditary.
Both the actor's parents died from the debilitating disease and he has now slammed the NHS for its "disgraceful" failure to care for the 850,000 Britons currently living with dementia.
His father Leslie died from the illness in 1989 at the age of 76, followed by his mother Phyllis in 2005 at the age of 89.
The star, who is ambassador for the Alzheimer's Society, said: "Both my parents lived with dementia and died with dementia.
"Although we still don't know how much it's passed on genetically, nevertheless you're going to worry, aren't you?
"I know intellectually that if I walk into a room and think 'why the f*** did I come in here?' it actually has nothing to do with Alzheimer's.
"Nevertheless, whenever it happens to me I do have that terror and think, 'Oh God, it's started! Here I am. Park me in the communal dining room in front of the telly'."
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The number of people suffering from dementia is set to rise to one million by 2020 but shocking reports reveal that nine in 10 state-run homes and hospitals are failing patients with the disease.
Chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society Jeremy Hughes described the quality of dementia care in hospitals as "Russian roulette".
Sir Tony also voiced his fears in the latest issue of over-50s men's magazine .
He explained "We are incarcerating people and putting them through something which is a kind of lazy torture, an ill-considered torture at the end of their lives.
"The fact that we're not investing more in our elderly is absolutely nonsensical, and is as much of a blind spot as it was in the 19th-Century as far as child labour and not giving women the vote, were concerned.
"I sometimes ask myself 'Didn't people in the 19th century understand that children going down the mines was a bit painful?'
"Didn't they understand that putting slaves in chains wasn't actually a terribly good idea?' And I bet the answer is, most people didn't actually consider it.
"We look at issues like those now and think, of course it's bloody obvious, why didn't we do that 50 years earlier?
"And yet there's this disgrace in our own society and it hardly impinges on us."
A 2010 study by the New York University School of Medicine with researchers at the University of Turku, Finland, concluded that Alzheimer's could be inherited.
Sir Tony, who is married to 36-year-old Louise Hobbs, said dementia activism had been the "phenomenon that dominated my life for a dozen years".
He recently became the official patron of The Research Institute for the Care of Older People () in memory of his late friend author Sir Terry Pratchett, who died from a rare form of dementia in 2015, aged 66.
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