A mother-of-two who was given the “devastating” news that she has Alzheimer’s at the age of 57 wants to encourage others who have similar symptoms to push for a diagnosis, as she has since realised that “life can be rich” despite the new challenges she now faces.
Jude Thorp, 59, who lives in Oxford, said she first started noticing changes in her cognitive abilities when she was working at The National Theatre in 2016.
Jude had extensive experience and loved her job, but she was struggling to complete easy tasks.
“I was not really playing my best game the last time I was at The National,” she said.
“It was a really simple show, I could do it standing on my head, and I was anxious and I didn’t know where I was. I was just very disorientated.”
Jude was experiencing bouts of memory loss, where she would often ask the same question multiple times, and she would forget significant conversations about plans.
Jude also felt really fatigued and struggled with her speech and word-finding.
She added: “It was frightening that I would do something and not remember that I had done it, particularly in a work situation.”
Jude believed these symptoms were associated with menopause, which, according to the NHS, usually occurs between the ages of 45 and 55.
She “couldn’t conceive” that she could have dementia due to her young age, but her wife Becky Hall, 53, a leadership and life coach and author, encouraged her to see a consultant.
During the first appointment in November 2016, Jude said her symptoms were dismissed and attributed to stress, which she said was “humiliating”.
“Imagine, you know, just being told that you’re a bit daft,” she said.
“That was my first time going to the doctors for something serious in my life and it was horrendous, and afterwards they said there’s nothing wrong with me.”
Jude said she was told by her first consultant that she was experiencing symptoms of memory loss because “she had too much going on” in her life.
But Jude and Becky did not stop there, as they continued to search for answers.
Jude visited two more consultants before undergoing an MRI and lumbar puncture – a procedure used to take a sample of the cerebrospinal fluid from the lower back.
After this, Jude was given the formal diagnosis of young onset dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease, in January 2021 – years after her first appointment.
“It was devastating because I didn’t know what it meant and what was going to happen,” she said. “I think I put my life on hold for a while.”
Jude said it was “very difficult” having to break the news to their two daughters, Izzy, 19, and Iona, 17, but she also felt a sense of relief, as not knowing was the “worst bit”.
