LOS ANGELES, 6 December 2003 — Ravaged by Alzheimer’s disease, former US President Ronald Reagan is no longer able to speak or feed himself and does not recognize his family, an exclusive report said yesterday.
People magazine said in its Dec. 5 edition that the United States’ 40th president, who is 92, spends his days confined to a hospital bed in a small room in his Los Angeles mansion with his wife, former first lady Nancy Reagan, almost constantly at his bedside.
And the emotional and physical strain is taking a heavy toll on the increasingly-frail Nancy Reagan, 82, who fiercely protects her ailing husband’s dignity to the extent that even their closest friends are barred from seeing him, the magazine said.
Reagan’s formerly estranged stepdaughter Patti Davis wrote in the magazine that her father was unable to talk or walk and said it was only his robust physical constitution that was keeping him alive. “I think it’s the tenacity of his soul — he just isn’t ready to leave his reunited family,” she said.
The former Republican leader announced he was suffering from the debilitating neural disease in 1994, but his family and aides have for years steadfastly refused to comment on his condition.
Breaking her silence, Patty Davis said she was often asked whether her father recognized her, as the former leader of the free world’s entourage keeps a tight lid on details of his illness.
“It makes me realize that my mother and I have been so protective of his condition since he became ill — almost a decade now — that it has allowed people to imagine he is still talking, still walking, still able to stumble into a moment of clarity,” she wrote. “But it would be a disservice to every family who has an Alzheimer’s victim in their embrace to say any of that is true, and I don’t believe my father would want us to lie.”
Reagan’s office in Los Angeles declined to comment on the report, but said that the former president was “the same” as ever.
Nancy Reagan, who, like her husband of more than 50 years, is a former Hollywood star, has appeared more frail in recent years and now limits her public appearances to events associated with Reagan’s political legacy. Reagan’s former White House doctor John Hutton told People magazine that were it not for his tough constitution, Reagan would probably already have died.
“Occasionally he is put in a wheelchair and moved out where he can view the city, but there is a vacantness there,” Hutton was quoted as saying. “You can’t really tell if he appreciates it.”
