Mum of 24-year-old man who died of dementia shares first time family noticed something was wrong

The mother of a young man who died of dementia has bravely opened up on her son's diagnosis, including the first time she noticed something wasn't quite right.

Andre Yarham, who lived in Dereham, Norfolk, in the UK, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia due to a protein mutation, just one month before his 23rd birthday.

He died just after Christmas, and his brain has been left to researchers.

Andre's mum, Sam Fairbairn, and her husband Alastair appeared on ITV's This Morning this week, where they sat down with hosts Ben Shepherd and Cat Deeley to raise awareness of the condition.

As outlined by the NHS, frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is an uncommon type of dementia that affects the front and sides of the brain and causes problems with behaviour and language.

Dementia mostly affects people over 65, but FTD tends to start at a younger age. Most cases are diagnosed in people aged 45-65, although it can also affect younger or older people.

Speaking on the breakfast show, Sam recalled: "At our wedding in November 2022, I was more [worried] about I'm going to have to be watching Andre because if not, he'll have a bit too much to drink.

"But he'd gone home by half nine, he just said, 'I'm going home, I've had enough' and off he went, and that's just not like him. I just thought maybe the day had got to him."

She explained that every morning he would go to the shop for his drink, but he started to come back and 'forget what he was going for, or he'd come back with something different, or go three or four times a day'.

'He had some changes in his behaviour, which were totally out of the norm for Andre, his speech and the way he was talking, and then forgetting what he was going out to buy," the mother recalled.

She added: "I'd worked in a day centre for people with autism and ADHD, and I put two and two together, and took him to the GP - he had the assessment and scored very highly, he'd got autism, but there was still something missing."

However, Sam had a 'mother's intuition' that something else was wrong, so they went back to the GP and were sent for an MRI scan, which revealed the devastating diagnosis.

She told the hosts: "The consultant said if he didn't know the scan he was looking at, he'd have thought it was like that of a 70-year-old that had got dementia."

Andre tragically died just after Christmas (Youtube / ThisMorning)

Sam had to give up his job as a car manufacturer as his condition deteriorated and mum Sam also had to quit her job as a coach driver to look after her son full-time, as he needed help with getting dressed, bathing and eating.

She emotionally recalled how, by September 2024, he had to be moved into a care home due to his mobility declining.

"Just before his twenty-third birthday, he'd lost a lot of his speech - [he went] into his first care home in September last year, he walked in, very slowly, and then within a month, he was in a wheelchair," she explained.

Sam wiped back tears as she added: "Then he got poorly, he got an infection and spent three weeks in the hospital, and we thought at the beginning, his not eating and drinking was due to the infection because ourselves, if we're poorly, we don't want to eat or drink.

"Then we got the devastating news that he was on end of life care. He went into the hospice the Thursday before Christmas, and passed away on December 27."

Sam's family have decided to donate his brain to science in the hope of finding a cure for dementia.

If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact Cruse Bereavement Care via their national helpline on 0808 808 1677.

If you've been affected by dementia or Alzheimer's and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact the Alzheimer’s Society via 0333 150 3456 or visit their website for more information.