Queen Silvia has been interviewed by Henrik Frenkel, the founder of Alzheimer Life Foundation.
In her first podcast interview ever, Queen Silvia talks openly about her mother's dementia and how it has affected her own life.
The Queen is also doubtful about how society has succeeded in its goal of protecting the elderly during the pandemic.
“It is extremely frightening that so many elderly people have died in the pandemic in Sweden. And it was with sadness in my heart that I saw that all the elderly who died became just a number in the statistics. Old people sat alone with their anxiety and their pain.”
In the one-hour unique podcast, Queen Silvia sits opposite me and talks about her time in quarantine, about what it was like to meet children and grandchildren at Solliden on Öland this summer, about the special stigma surrounding Alzheimer's and about the thoughts of being affected.
Listen to the unique podcast talk with Queen Silvia here.
Drottning Silvia_ ”Skrämmande att äldre som dött i pandemin bara blir en siffra i statistiken” by Hjälp, har jag Alzheimer!
I listened the podcast
The queen tells at the podcast that after their quarantine in Stenhammar she and the king met their children and grandchildren in Solliden. First came the crown princess family, and then a little later the prince family. Everyone who came to Solliden were tested for Covid-19. The meetings were done outdoors. The meetings with her grandchildren were difficult, when she couldn't hug them, of course those of them who are older, understood it and it was easier with them.
Queen Silvia in her first podcast interview: "Scary that the elderly who died in the pandemic only become a number in the statistics"
In her first podcast interview, Queen Silvia talks openly about her thoughts on having dementia in the family through her deceased mother.
In the one-hour interview, the Queen also questions her neighbors on Drottningholm for having stopped the heart project SilviaBo. The Queen suspects that it is prejudice against people with dementia that is behind the fact that the six apartments have been empty for three years.
The Queen also suggests doubts about how society has succeeded in its goal of protecting the elderly during the pandemic.
“It is extremely frightening that so many elderly people have died in the pandemic in Sweden. And it was with sadness in my heart that I saw that all the elderly who died became just a number in the statistics. Old people sat alone with their anxiety and their pain.”
Queen Silvia sits opposite me and tells me how difficult it was, when the infection was ravaging our nursing homes the most, to sit isolated at Stenhammar Castle and not be able to do anything for the elderly.
“It is easy to imagine the pain that all the elderly feel in isolation. I understand that the authorities want well but people are suffering."
I follow up by asking if we have succeeded in our most important mission, to protect the elderly during the pandemic.
"It depends on how you see it… but preferably I want to avoid answering that question."
I understand that a clearer answer can ignite the criticism of the part of the Swedish strategy that would protect the old and fragile. And there the Queen is careful, but the silence in the answer gives a hint.
We are sitting in the King's and Queen's private dining room at the Royal Palace. The Queen has invited me for her first ever podcast interview.
Monday is International Alzheimer's Day, and now the Queen wants to shed light on Alzheimer's disease and the dementia issue, which she thinks has disappeared. A very large number of those who died in Covid-19 have suffered from dementia, and become easy victims of the infection.
But the Queen also says in the interview that she followed my own journey with various forms of diagnoses, and now wants to honor my public opinion work by setting up a very personal conversation about Alzheimer's disease and how it has affected her and her family.
“SilviaBo is a project I do with my heart”
The queen is relaxed during the conversation, and sometimes a little hilarious. But at one point in the interview, it flashes in the Queen's eyes. That's when we start talking about the Queen's big heart project in recent years, SilviaBo out on Drottningholm.
Together with Ingvar Kamprad and Ikea, the Queen developed a modern form of senior apartments for couples who lived a whole life together and would now have the opportunity to live together even when one of them suffers from Alzheimer's. The Queen saw these six apartments as a pilot project to perhaps develop into a model for the whole of Sweden.
But the Queen's neighbors have stopped patients from moving into their homes. On paper for formal reasons. And for the past three years, they have been completely empty.
"This makes me very sad, that you (neighbors, authorities) can not see that it is a well-meaning project and that I do it with my heart."
I ask if the Queen deep down suspects that the real reason why the neighbors want to stop SilviaBo is due to prejudice and that but do not want dementia so close to them.
"I do not dare to ask because I am afraid it is so. It is so painful and cruel that we have nice apartments that are just empty.”
The conversation with the Queen is largely very personal. The Queen is probably the one in our country who for the past 25 years has done the most for people with dementia, and to draw attention to Alzheimer's and dementia.
"One should speak openly about the disease in the family"
The Silviahemmet Foundation was founded on the initiative of the Queen on Valentine's Day 1996 and is both a day activity and a certification of care staff in dementia issues.
The Queen realized early on that knowledge is the tool to be able to understand, help and treat a person with dementia. At Silviahemmet, both younger and older people with dementia meet daily with Silvia sisters, who with care and knowledge make sure to take care of the health of each guest.
The Queen is also behind an acclaimed certification of healthcare professionals in dementia issues.
For the Queen, the interest and commitment began with her own mother Alice becoming ill. The first sign, says the Queen, was when mother Alice was visiting Drottningholm Palace and could not pack her own suitcase. The queen's father had kept a secret from both her mother and his daughter that it was dementia.
"It was a shame, because it had helped me deal with my mother's illness", says the Queen.
But what makes me surprised - and as the Queen now tells publicly for the first time - is that the Queen herself chose when she found out about her mother's diagnosis, not to tell her mother that it was a dementia the mother suffered from. Alzheimer's and dementia are surrounded by a stigma, and it is cemented by keeping quiet and not talking about the disease.
The Queen believes that the silence was made out of consideration, but that it is something the Queen today with better knowledge regrets.
"I think the family should talk openly about the disease. It was so strange for the children that my mother could repeat five times that they had not visited them without being able to understand why.”
The Queen's mother, Alice Sommerlath, died on Drottningholm 23 years ago, but the memories and pain of her mother's illness remain. It is noticeable in the conversation, and it is a pain the Queen shares with all the relatives, to slowly see her parent disappear from her ordinary self.
We naturally get into the Queen's own fear of suffering from dementia. The Queen turns 77 in December, and the risk of developing Alzheimer's increases exponentially with age. If you also have dementia in the family, that risk is doubled.
"Are we not all afraid of it", the Queen answers my personal question.
I follow up by asking what the Queen would want if she herself suffered from dementia.
“If I were to become ill with Alzheimer's, I hope that all the work I have put in over 25 years to develop knowledge about dementia, can also help me and my family in such a situation. That they (the family ) do not get scared and can stand by my side, and that they include me.”
The Queen then says that if someone in the royal couple should suffer from a dementia disease, they will go out and tell it openly to the Swedish people, in the same way as Queen Margarethe did when her husband Prince Henrik was affected.
Other things that come up in the almost hour-long podcast interview:
Why the Queen has never before felt so much 70-plus.
How the royal couple lived during their quarantine at Stenhammar Castle.
Concerns about getting the virus yourself.
How the Queen met her children and grandchildren during the quarantine.
Why did the Queen start by investing in assistant nurses in her internationally acclaimed effort to certify health care professionals?
Why does the head of American Bank, after a visit to Silviahemmet, now train his banking staff in dementia issues?
Why the Queen's mother became so scared when she saw a dark carpet on Drottningholm.
What the Queen gives for advice to those who have anxiety because they have incipient Alzheimer's.
What to do when telling your children that you have a cognitive illness.
What the Queen thinks will be the headline in the newspapers after this podcast talk.
Drottning Silvia i sin första poddintervju_ ”Skrämmande att äldre som dött i pandemin bara blir en siffra i statistiken” - Alzheimer Life
Drottning Silvia om tiden i karantän_ ”Så mycket 70-plus”
