Star of The Great Gatsby raises awareness of Alzheimer's disease by talking about grandmother's dementia diagnosis

Actress Carey Mulligan has appeared on BBC Breakfast to speak about understanding the changes that have affected her grandmother since she was diagnosed with dementia over ten years ago.

As well as talking about her grandma “Nans”, and the care she receives at a care home in Wales, Ms Mulligan championed the work that Alzheimer’s Society is doing to raise awareness of the disease through its annual Memory Walk events.

She said: “My grandma has dementia and is in a brilliant home in Wales, Pontadawe. I think we started noticing signs of dementia about 12 years ago when I was about 15, 16.

“I started to realise she was forgetful about things that I knew she would be passionate about and remember. She was a geography teacher and so she was always really interested in my education and what I was studying. I remember picking my A-Levels and I told her what I was doing and she started not remembering what [the subjects] were and I thought, you love education and you are really excited about what I’m going to do, and she couldn’t remember them.”

Ms Mulligan urged people to talk about the disease, which Alzheimer’s Society predicts could affect 1.7 million people by 2051, in order to raise awareness and improve understanding of the illness.

She said: “The first time I went into the home and I sat talking to Nans, she had trouble communicating. I could talk to her, but often, other people in the home would try and talk to me or try to start a conversation and I would feel immediately nervous and think am I going to mess up this conversation because it’s slightly difficult sometimes.

“It can be a little bit challenging talking to somebody with dementia if you’re nervous - you don’t want to be patronising and I think a lot of people feel that.

“I think what’s so great about the Alzheimer’s Society and what we want to do in September, which is these Memory Walks. The more people are talking about it and raising awareness, [the] more people just feel more comfortable – it’s less of a scary subject.”

The actress, who recently appeared in the film recreation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby as Daisy Buchanan, was joined by chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society Jeremy Hughes, who urged viewers to participate in a Memory Walk event in September.

Mr Hughes said: “With 800,000 people across the country [living with dementia], most people know someone in their family who has dementia or might have dementia and one of the things we’re keen to do through the activities of the Alzheimer’s Society, our Memory Walks and everything else, is just make people more aware of some of the signs and symptoms of dementia and ask people to go to their GP and get checked out to see if there’s something that could be helped.”

Memory Walk events will be taking place throughout the country during September to raise funds to support people living with dementia.

This year marks the third fund raising Memory Walk organised, which is held in partnership with Bupa Care Homes.

For more information visit: http://www.memorywalk.org.uk/.