'Sad' Nancy Reagan keeps vigil
2003-12-05 06:52
Los Angeles - Ravaged by Alzheimer's disease, former US president Ronald Reagan is no longer able to speak or feed himself and does not recognise his family, an exclusive report said Thursday.
People magazine said in its December 5 edition that the 40th American 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 step-daughter 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.
So protective
"It makes me realise 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."
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.
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."
Reagan underwent a hip replacement operation two years ago and has not been seen in public for years.
Nancy Reagan's former aide, Sheila Tate, told the magazine that the former first lady looks after her husband all the time and is stricken with sadness.
"She lives with it every day," she said. "She doesn't complain but she's sad. You can hear it in her voice."