Ruth’s health update follows shortly after she also opened up about her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease
Ruth Langsford has told fans she’s feeling quite under the weather after coming down with a bout of the ‘lurgy’. The Loose Women star provided a health update on Instagram yesterday, detailing many of the methods she’s been using to aid her recovery.
“Got the lurgy,” Ruth, aged 65, told her followers. “Hopefully, a bowl of this homemade chicken broth and vegetable soup will set me right.” In a separate Story, Ruth zoomed in on various products she’s been using during her bed rest.
Just Bee ‘Immunity Honey’, Twinings Superblends Defence tea, Lemsip Max Cold & Flu sachets, and Echinaforce drops were among those she showcased. The star also rubbed VapoRub on her feet after being told it might help.
Captioning a video of her rubbing her feet, Ruth penned: “Willing to try anything!” Once finished, she added: “Socks on… Time for bed!”
Ruth’s update follows shortly after she also opened up about her mother’s own health battle with Alzheimer’s disease – the same condition that took her father’s life 13 years ago. Joan, 94, is now experiencing various challenging symptoms, such as memory loss, and Ruth consistently cares for her. She currently lives in a care home near Ruth’s house in Surrey.
Discussing her mother earlier this year, Ruth said: “She wouldn’t remember what she’s had for her lunch or breakfast, and if I go and see her, when I leave, if you said to her was Ruth here today, she’d say no. But in the moment, she still knows it’s me – as soon as she sees me, she says ‘Oh, what a lovely surprise!’ like she hasn’t seen me for months.
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“It’s very difficult, but I’m much more well-versed in this with my mum, because of my dad. We as a family had no idea about Alzheimer’s or dementia when he got it, and we were a bit lost. I learned a lot of lessons with my dad.”
Later, she continued: “I don’t have that day-to-day care of cooking, cleaning, all those things, but I am still her main carer. So if they say your mum needs to see the doctor, or the dentist, or she needs some shower gel and toothpaste, then that does come down to me.
“And just generally I go in, I take her fruit, I take her flowers, I check the room, I look at her wardrobe, make sure things are hung in the right place. It’s care with love, isn’t it?”
With both her mum and dad having suffered from Alzheimer’s, Ruth also confessed that she experiences moments of fear whenever she has a memory lapse, wondering whether she might be developing the condition herself.
However, she has no plans to undergo testing to determine her risk of getting dementia, revealing: “Every time I forget something, those blank moments where you go ‘I’ve totally forgotten that person’s name, and I work with them every day’, I can feel that panic.
“And sometimes I look back and think, I was tired that day, but when you’ve had both parents with dementia of course it’s on my mind, and I know there are tests you can do that can say if you’re more susceptible, but I actually don’t want to know.
“That might sound a bit childlike, but as there’s no cure for it, and I know what it involves, I don’t want to know. I just want to live my life. If I get it, I get it. I hope not.”