A CLYDEBANK couple star in a dementia charity’s latest winter fund-raising campaign.

Danny McDonald and his wife Catherine share their story in Alzheimer Scotland’s winter advert.

Danny was diagnosed with vascular dementia five years ago.

The 57-year-old said: “My diagnosis was quite earth shattering for us. The first thing that came into my mind was how was this going to change our lives?

“My outlook was just to be the best husband and father that I could be regardless of the diagnosis because inside I’d not really changed.”

They phoned their local dementia resource centre to get some information and the advisor offered to visit them the next day.

Danny said: “The advisor’s support was excellent. There’s always someone you can talk to. Life would be very difficult for us without Alzheimer Scotland – they’ve had such a positive impact in our life. The dementia resource centre is like my second home.”

He is now a member of the Scottish Dementia Working Group, a campaigning group run by people with dementia and funded by Alzheimer Scotland and the Scottish Government.

Catherine added: “We got quite a blunt diagnosis. Danny was told, ‘you’ve got memory problems and you’ve had a stroke so therefore we’re giving you a diagnosis of dementia, we’ll see you again in six weeks’.

“So we left and sat in the car and we both had a cry and asked ‘what’s just happened? Where do we go from here?’

“We phoned the dementia centre the next day to try and get information and answer some questions we had. I got invited to attend a six week education course and it was lots of practical advice, social and emotional support because it was all carers.

“We all got to know each other fairly well. There were some tears and lots of laughter but it was one of these things that you weren’t on your own.”

The charity provides support and information to people with dementia, their carers and families, and campaigns for the rights of people with dementia and fund vital dementia research.

Henry Simmons, chief executive for the charity said: “We simply could not provide the level of support we do without such dedicated supporters - thank you to each and every person who make it possible for us to support people with dementia and their families and carers.”