Ruth Langsford has previously spoken about her own dementia fears after witnessing her dad suffer with the condition, and her mum currently living with Alzheimer's disease.
Now, she's shared insights into her personal experience of caring for parents with the illness, and the impact of a cruel comment when she made the "awful" decision to put her mum into a care home when she could no longer stay in her own house.
Ruth's dad, Dennis, was 72 when he was diagnosed with dementia, eventually passing away from complications from the condition in 2012. Her 94-year-old mother, Joan, is currently living with Alzheimer's after being diagnosed around eight years ago.
Appearing on Fearne Cotton's Happy Place podcast, Ruth recalls the turmoil her mum went through when her dad needed full time care. Speaking of how she eased the guilt her mum felt, Ruth tells Fearne, "We said to her, 'Daddy needs 24 hour care mum, and you can't possibly give him that.'"
"He would not want you to become ill looking after him," she told her mum at the time, referring to the situation for all her family as "really, really awful."
When the time came that Joan was no longer safe to be cared for in her home by carers and also needed full time care, Ruth was once again faced with the same decision over care homes.
After going ahead and putting her mum in a care home, Ruth continued to post pictures and videos of Joan to social media, as she'd always done.
After sharing a video of Joan "dancing in the kitchen doing the veg," which she doesn't do so much now she's into her 90s and less able to, Ruth was devastated to receive a nasty comment.
Somebody wrote underneath Ruth's video, "If she loves her mum so much, why is she in a care home, why isn't she living with her?"
"I don't really reply to these things because you give them oxygen, don't you?" Ruth tells Fearne, but in this case, she was so angry and upset, she replied.
"How dare you," she recalls replying to the unnecessary comment, adding, "You know nothing about my mother's medical needs, her requirements, how dare you."
After drawing attention to the comment with her response, the presenter shares that her fans "jumped on" the person. "Then I felt bad, because it was a pile on," she shares.
Ruth continues, "But it just showed how much it hurt, you're feeling all those things yourself. It's a very hard thing for people, and I see it all the time."
"I do lots of things for Alzheimer's, the memory walk every year, and I chat to people, and that's the one thing people talk about the most, saying, 'I feel so bad because I put them [their relative] in a care home,'" she says.
Ruth has advice for anyone having these difficult, guilty thoughts. "Don't feel guilty, it's done with love, you are doing this with love," she says.
The presenter also talks about the slow nature of loss when you have a parent in cognitive decline, and the challenge of watching their personality leave while their physical body remains here.
Speaking about her dad, Ruth recalls, "I could see it in his eyes one day, he didn't know I was his daughter. He just thinks I'm a nice lady bringing him his favourite maltesers and cake."
She was forced to tell herself "that's alright" when this happened. "I know who he is, and I'm here, but it's hard," she says of her feelings about that time.
Her mum however, "100% knows its me," she shares, delighted that Joan will introduce her to others as "my daughter," remembering their special connection despite her other memory problems.
