Bad Sisters actress Anne-Marie Duff speaks out about her brother's Alzheimer’s diagnosis

The Bad Sisters actress has spoken out about her brother's Alzheimer’s diagnosis and how her family has been coping

Anne-Marie Duff has spoken about her brother's early onset dementia diagnosis in his forties and how his condition has worsened. Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Actress Anne-Marie Duff has opened up about caring for her brother and how her family has found themselves in the “midst of a nightmare” since his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.

The Bafta winner, who is known for her roles in shows like Shameless and more recently Bad Sisters, spoke about her brother Eddie’s condition over the years.

Eddie, 56, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's almost a decade ago and Duff has raised awareness of the disease amid her family's own experience.

In an interview published this week by The Times, Duff shared an update on her brother’s condition and said that while her family’s situation is "sad", they are still making "precious memories" together.

Speaking to The Times, Duff said she felt "infuriated and afraid" when her brother appeared unable to keep 'his life under control' in his forties - getting on the wrong bus or turning up to work at the wrong time.

“All sorts of suspicions were aroused, was he drinking? Was he taking drugs? Why couldn’t he keep it together? Did he need therapy?”, Duff said.

In his mid-forties, Eddie was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s, termed as such when symptoms develop before 65.

Duff, who sat with her brother in the hospital as he received the diagnosis said that at first, the doctors wondered whether they had discovered a new strain of dementia because he was so young. 

“It was sad, because he couldn’t accept it and he couldn’t fully comprehend it. It’s quite aggressive when it’s very early onset,” she said.

Now 56, his condition has progressed, and the family finds themselves in the “midst of a nightmare” trying to find specialist accommodation where he is attended to by carers trained specifically for dementia patients.

“He needs to be in secure care because he does wander off and it’s very dangerous,” Duff explained.

The care system is a mess. He did have a social worker, who was working with him right up until Christmas, and then she was taken off his case and nobody has replaced her. The manager where he’s staying now has contacted the social services several times to no avail.

Comparing caring for her brother to having a baby, she said: “There are no choices, you just have to, as Seamus Heaney would say, keep it on the spirit level.” She said that while their situation is tough, the family makes time to share moments of lightness and joy together.

Duff and her brother grew up in west London with their Irish parents, Mary, who worked in a shoe shop, and Brendan, a painter and decorator.

After graduating from Drama Centre London in 1993, Duff made her breakthrough as Fiona Gallagher in Channel 4’s Shameless in 2004, where she starred alongside James McAvoy, her now ex-husband.

She has since played Erin Wiley in Sex Education and Grace Williams in Irish comedy-drama Bad Sisters and went on to win a Bafta for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the series.

Anne-Marie Duff alongside her Bad Sisters co-stars Sarah Greene, Sharon Horgan, Eva Birthistle and Eve Hewson in Bad Sisters. Picture: PA Photo/AppleTV+

Eddie was interested in acting and would come and watch his little sister in plays. When they were younger they would perform Laurel and Hardy skits together for the family.

“He drove me mad. I was never cool enough for him,” she said.

Duff, who is currently in the middle of a stage run of The Little Foxes at the Young Vic, spoke in December to BBC Radio 4 about her brother’s condition where she shared that the family had reached the point where her brother will need “much more care”.

“I’d say he’s been living with it [Alzheimer's] for about 14 years and he’s only a couple of years older than me so that’ll tell you how young he was and he had his diagnosis around eight or nine years ago," she said.

“It’s very, very difficult because you are watching somebody slowly vanish before your eyes, but the love doesn’t vanish. I’d say that is one of the gifts of all of it is that the love is so present in the room, there’s an unspoken version of your relationship that exists almost in a completely other element. It’s so beautiful.

“He doesn’t know who I am but he knows I love him.”