MOTT THE HOOPLE star DALE GRIFFIN has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
The drummer, a founding member of the 1970s rock band, played with the group up until its split in 1974 and returned for the 2009 reunion.
The 61 year old has now opened up about the shock diagnosis, revealing doctors told him about the debilitating neurological condition three years ago.
Griffin admits he first started to suspect something was wrong when he found himself unable to write properly, and now he is dealing with bouts of crippling memory loss.
He tells Britain's Daily express, "Mr Alzheimer makes a monkey out of you., the horrible little twerp. You set out to do one thing and then for no reason you can quite make out, you find you're doing something completely different. I used to be confident about what I was doing, but now I like to check with someone else that what I am saying or doing is OK, not odd...
"Some days are OK, but some days are really upsetting and I get very scared. I get frustrated because I can't think of the words I want to use or work out what I'm supposed to be doing. It's very disheartening."
Griffin admits he and his wife, Jean, are now attempting to raise awareness of the disease, insisting a doctor who blamed his condition on his rock and roll lifestyle made the couple determined to publicise the facts surrounding Alzheimer's.
Jean adds, "There is such ignorance surrounding the subject. He's always been in good health and there is nothing in Dale's early life that would have made Alzheimer's more inevitable for him that it is for any other sufferer. We both want to do what we can to dispel these kinds of myths."