Edel Coffey: The fate of our parents doesn’t necessarily have to be our fate

I made lists and lists of awful illnesses, terrible diseases, dreadful diagnoses and, to my mind, every single one of them was preferable to the one my mother had just received

Edel Coffey: 'I was a little surprised at the extent of the relief I felt last week at the announcement of the most promising breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment to date.' Picture: Ray Ryan

I never thought I lived in fear. I thought I was a hopeful and optimistic person. But last week I realised I have been living in fear. It was the kind of news story that might have passed you by on the endless rushing wave of 24-hour news updates, just another one of those stories that whizzes past your eyeline like detritus on floodwater… unless you had a particular interest in news of Alzheimer’s research. But I did have a particular interest in the announcement last week that there had been a breakthrough.

There have been other news reports of breakthroughs over the past decade or so, since Alzheimer’s first became an area of interest for me. News of research in slugs that might lead to possible areas for investigation or news that mice had responded positively to certain drug experiments. They were theoretically exciting but none of them made any difference to the real people suffering with the illness in real time.