{"id":2198899,"date":"2026-10-14T10:48:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T07:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2198899"},"modified":"2026-10-14T10:48:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T07:48:29","slug":"davina-mccall-says-memory-loss-after-brain-surgery-was-like-advanced-alzheimers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2198899","title":{"rendered":"Davina McCall says memory loss after brain surgery was like ‘advanced Alzheimer’s’"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/294a\/live\/facd0cf0-c7bb-11f1-ae81-f79bab61f11a.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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TV presenter Davina McCall has said she experienced symptoms similar to “advanced Alzheimer’s” following brain surgery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Speaking on Paloma Faith’s podcast Mad, Sad and Bad, the 58-year-old described suffering from memory loss while recovering from an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“After I’d had my brain tumour taken out, I had advanced Alzheimer’s, so I couldn’t remember anything,” the former Big Brother host told singer and Celebrity Traitors star Faith.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“When I came out of the operation, I didn’t know I’d had an operation,” she recalled. One regular member of staff would ask McCall every day if she could remember their name. “And I’d go, ‘I don’t know’.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Masked Singer judge had surgery in November 2024 after a colloid cyst was found in a health check-up as part of her menopause advocacy work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In November last year she revealed she had also undergone surgery for breast cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She called 2025 the “hardest year” for both her and her partner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Speaking about the recovery from her brain surgery, she said: “Michael would come and visit [hospital] 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I couldn’t watch a movie for six months because I couldn’t remember what had happened in the movie 15 minutes before. [When reading] a book I couldn’t remember the page before.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A year ago, for the first time since the surgery, she noted, she woke up and could remember what she had done the previous day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Watch: Davina McCall tears up on Comic Relief as she discusses brain surgery<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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According to the NHS, later stage symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease include “significant problems with short and long-term memory”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease and so symptoms gradually worsen over years. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After brain surgery, though, problems tend to be worst early on, then stabilise and improve over weeks to months. Some people are left with milder lasting changes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Music therapy can help people to recover from brain injuries and McCall said she believes it was ultimately singing lessons that had “healed” her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In April 2025, McCall revealed she had been told – following MRI scans – that her tumour was “not coming back”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A benign tumour is not cancerous, but such cysts tend to grow slowly, according to the Brainstrust charity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Non-cancerous brain tumours are more common in people over the age of 50, and symptoms can include headaches, vision problems and drowsiness, the NHS says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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McCall’s surgery, known as a craniotomy, involved part of her skull being removed to take out the tumour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She has spoken about the procedure and her recovery, including on her own podcast called Begin Again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cky93v98x7jjo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/294a\/live\/facd0cf0-c7bb-11f1-ae81-f79bab61f11a.jpg”] BBC TV presenter Davina McCall has said she experienced symptoms similar to “advanced Alzheimer’s” following brain surgery. Speaking on Paloma Faith’s podcast Mad, Sad and Bad, the 58-year-old described suffering from memory loss while recovering from an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 2024. “After I’d had my brain tumour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-2198899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2198899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2198899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2198899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2198899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}