A BBC2 documentary about mental health will see Terry Pratchett discuss Alzheimer’s disease. Headroom, the BBC’s two-year mental health and well-being campaign has already featured Griff Rhys Jones charting his anger issues in Losing It and Cracking Up: Alastair Campbell on Breakdown, which showed the former spin doctor talking about his nervous breakdown in 1986.
Fantasy author Terry Pratchett chronicles his personal journey since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Produced by IWC Media, it follows Pratchett’s search through science for a cure or a way of slowing down the onset of his illness.
Headroom is part of a BBC campaign to raise awareness of the importance of good mental health and de-stigmatise the problems surrounding mental illness.
Earlier this month, Pratchett urged people to talk openly about dementia. A study from the Alzheimer’s Society found that half of UK adults believe dementia is a condition plagued by stigma. Figures show that one in three people over the age of 65 will die with a form of dementia. Almost a million people are expected to be living with dementia in the next 20 years, rising to 1.7 million by 2051 due to an increasingly ageing population.
Terry Pratchett is best known for the fantasy novels that make up the Discworld series. This series now comprises of more than forty books and is a humorous and at times satirical work set on a disc-shaped world that is carried on the backs of four giant elephants. The first book of the Discworld series was entitled The Colour Of Magic and is reviewed here. The Colour Of Magic was published in 1983 but he continued to work until 1987 when he was able to become a full-time author.