Caring Mail readers hit first dementia appeal target: Angela Rippon backs Mail campaign as funds raised pass £100,000 in just a week

Angela Rippon has backed the Daily Mail's dementia carers appeal as donations passed the first target of £100,000 in just a week.The broadcaster, 82, called for greater support for carers as she warned too many are left overwhelmed and struggling to cope alone.The £120,090 donated so far thanks to the Mail’s kind-hearted readers is enough to pay for nearly 3,000 places on our Dementia Carers Together courses, delivered in partnership with Alzheimer’s Society and the Mail Force charity.The charity will now use the funds to launch pilot sessions - but the appeal needs to raise significantly more for a full national rollout.The six-week courses will give carers vital support and information about their rights and the services available to them.They will allow attendees to meet others in a similar situation and help to address the loneliness, exhaustion and overwhelming responsibilities many face following a loved one’s diagnosis.Ms Rippon, whose late mother Edna had vascular dementia, welcomed the initiative and said carers need more emotional, physical and financial help.Failing to look after them could leave families with ‘two ill people’, she added. Angela Rippon backed the Daily Mail and Alzheimer's Society campaign and said carers need more emotional, physical and financial help She described carers as a 'forgotten army', with some effectively 'abandoned' by the welfare system.And she cautioned Britain is still 'lagging behind' in its wider response to dementia, which is treated less favourably than cancer.But the former newsreader and Strictly Come Dancing contestant said relatively simple acts of support could make a real difference, from giving carers time away from their responsibilities to putting them in touch with other people who understand what they are going through.'If you've got one being looked after, the other should be looked after too, because the two are inseparable,' she said.'A carer who is getting the right kind of support, emotional and physical and financial support, will enable the person with whom they are living with dementia to actually also have a much more involved life in the community.'In its first week the appeal has won the backing of every major political party leader as well as raising more than £100,000.Hailing the ‘incredible milestone’, Michelle Dyson, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Society, said: ‘We are so grateful to every Daily Mail reader who has supported the Dementia Carers Together appeal.‘Every penny raised will help Alzheimer’s Society reach more carers with the practical advice, support and connection they desperately need.‘The Daily Mail has put dementia firmly in the spotlight this week, bringing the often-hidden experiences of carers into the open and showing the considerable pressures so many face every day.‘To see that matched by support from the Prime Minister and politicians across the political spectrum sends a powerful message that dementia is an issue we can all get behind.‘Most importantly, this extraordinary response shows carers everywhere that they are seen, and they do not have to face dementia alone.’Emma Ruscoe, 58, a full-time dementia carer for her husband Simon, 62, thanked Mail readers for their ‘staggering’ generosity in raising £100,000 in a week.The mother-of-two, from Solihull, West Midlands, added: ‘It’s a really good start and if it could carry on at that pace then it would be great.‘The way that dementia is being viewed is becoming different because of high profile people putting a spotlight on it.‘It’s really good that the Mail are doing this - however, we still need to raise more.’Ms Rippon, who is an Alzheimer's Society ambassador, said carers would appreciate it if friends and family occasionally offered respite.She highlighted how carers can suffer isolation, loneliness, stress and anxiety, while many are left in 'despair' as they struggle with the demands of the condition.Speaking to the Daily Mail, Ms Rippon said social activities can help carers and people with dementia, reducing isolation while giving families something positive to share.She said dancing, music and singing could all help, adding: 'It's something we should have more in care homes.'But she said support remained too inconsistent and accused the welfare system of failing some carers.Recalling the experience of a close friend, she said: 'I've had a situation recently with a very very close friend for whom the welfare system just abandoned her basically, and I think the gentleman who several years ago said to me we are a 'forgotten army' was right.'Ms Rippon said dementia had 'come out of the shadows and into the spotlight' during the two decades she has campaigned on the issue, but added: 'There are still so many areas where we're lagging behind.'She said a lack of understanding of dementia as a serious medical condition had historically left it 'very low down the list of priority for people'.That disparity, she argued, could also be seen in decisions over access to new drugs.Ms Rippon branded it 'cruel' that dementia patients could be denied treatments capable of giving them precious extra time with their families when drugs offering additional months or years may be available to people with cancer.She said: 'All of us live one life, and we want to have as long on this earth with our loved ones as we possibly can, and to deny someone that just because they have an illness that is not properly understood is just not right.'It's cruel. It's cruel. Why would you deny someone the opportunity to live longer with their loved ones?'Ms Rippon, who said her own brain is still 'firing on all cylinders', said one of her most insightful moments came while making the BBC programme The Truth About Dementia, when she was allowed to handle a healthy brain and one donated by the family of someone who had died with dementia.She described the dementia–affected brain as 'shrunken and light, and grey and black'.Emma Ruscoe, 58, a full–time dementia carer for her husband Simon, 62, thanked Mail readers for their 'staggering' generosity in raising £100,000 in a week. Pictured with their sons - Alex, right, and Ollie, left'When we sliced into the dementia brain, we had we had a sliver that looked like a piece of black lace, because where the cells had been surrounded by and killed off by the plaque, they had disappeared,' she said.'You are left with a shadow of a brain. You are left with a piece, with a sliver that looks like lace, and all of those brain cells have gone. That is what dementia does.'The experience helped her understand why her mother would suddenly become agoraphobic, distrustful, forgetful and argumentative.'Parts of her brain that made her what she had been before were missing, and they had gone,' she explained.Ms Rippon also urged people who fear developing dementia to confront that anxiety rather than avoid it.She told how she had taken a test to learn if she faced an increased genetic risk of dementia and learned she was not.Finding out about the possibility of dementia at an early stage could allow people to prepare themselves and their families and consider taking part in drug trials, she added.Asked whether new drugs and trials gave her optimism, she replied: 'Oh yes, surely they must.'But she cautioned: 'Dementia needs social commitment as well as medical and research commitment. That's what it needs.' Dementia Carers Together Dementia Carers Together is raising money to fund new courses across the UK to give tens of thousands of struggling unpaid dementia carers vital emotional and practical support. For further information, visit dailymail.com/dementiaHow you can donateOnline: Click here.By Text: To donate £10, text CARER to 70115. To donate £20, text LOVE to 70115. To donate £30, text HEART to 70115. Texts will cost your donation amount plus your network charge.By phone: Call 0300 1234577. Standard charges may apply.By cheque: Send cheques made payable to Mail Force Charity to:Dementia Carers Together, 42 Phoenix Court, Hawkins Road, Colchester CO2 8JY