By Line of Duty actress Vicky McClure has opened up about her late grandmother's 'extremely sad' struggle with dementia.
Appearing on This Morning earlier today, she said Iris – who passed away in 2015 – was diagnosed with the heartbreaking disease in later life.
"When anything hits your family or your real life, you need to know everything," Vicky told Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield. "It was like, where do we go from here? It was tricky. I wanted to do as much as I could."
Vicky, who's best known for playing Detective Sergeant Kate Fleming in the popular BBC drama and has also appeared in Channel 4's This is England, said Iris deteriorated and "wasn't able to leave the house" towards the end of her life. But her grandmother would always respond to her daughter (Vicky's mum's) singing.
"My mum would sing and grandmother would spark up," she explained. "You'd get a glimmer of hope."
This inspired the actress to get involved with the Dementia Choir, who she has teamed up with for a new two-part BBC1 documentary investigating the link between music and memory.
Vicky said meeting the 20 choir members, all of whom suffer from Dementia, was "emotional".
"Yeah obviously it's extremely sad [to have dementia] in my family but the Dementia Choir was emotional because I could see the choir doing those incredible things," she said.
"Music can change your mood," she added. "I've had loads of brain scans. The results are outstanding."
Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure starts on BBC1 on Thursday 2 May at 8pm.
