Davina McCall reveals how 'mind physio' helped her recover memory loss that felt like ‘advanced Alzheimer’s’
TV presenter Davina McCall has revealed she suffered from what felt like ‘advanced Alzheimer’s symptoms’ after she underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour.
She explained she faced months of memory loss, including not being able to watch a movie because she was unable to recall what had happened just 15 minutes in the past or what the previous page of a book she had been reading said, according to the Daily Mail.
Speaking to singer Paloma Faith on the Mad, Sad & Bad podcast, she said that when her husband, celebrity hairdresser Michael Douglas, visited her during her treatment for the benign brain tumour.
Once he left the room and returned, she failed to remember him coming in the first time.
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She said: “After I'd had my brain tumour taken out, I had advanced Alzheimer's.
Davina continued: “So I couldn't remember anything. So 2025 was the hardest year of Michael’s and my lives.”
When Paloma asked her to go into more detail about what she was forgetting, Davina replied: “When I came out of the operation, I didn't know I'd had an operation. The staff came in every day and they'd go, ‘what's my name’ and I'd go ‘I don't know’.
“Michael would come and visit for two hours, and he'd go to the loo and come back, and I'd go ‘oh my god you're here’ and I didn't know he'd been there.
“I couldn't watch a movie for six months, because I couldn't remember what had happened in the movie 15 minutes before. A book I couldn't remember the page before.”
Davina then went on to describe how she was able to improve her memory.
She said: “I did singing lessons. Music. That was my mind physio.
“Yeah, music was music healed me. And last October was the first time I woke up and I went, 'Oh my god, I remember what I did yesterday.'”
In 2024, Davina had surgery to remove a non-cancerous tumour, before being diagnosed with breast cancer the following year.
In August she revealed she had found unlikely support from comedian Peter Kay, who she explained was not a friend of hers before the cancer struggle.
Davina said: “Do you know who really helped me, actually, and it was really strange. Peter Kay. He called me when I was in hospital with my brain tumour.
“I really don't know him that well, but he was unbelievably supportive.”
She continued: “He just talked me through what to do.
“He said: ‘What do you want to do? How do you feel about it?’ And he said: ‘I think you know what you want to do.’ And I was like: ‘Yeah I want to talk about it.’”
Michael D. Carroll