Son: Ronald Reagan suffered Alzheimer’s while in office

Ronald Reagan works at his desk in the White House. | AP Photo

By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 1/14/11
Politico.com

President Ronald Reagan’s son says in a new book that he believes his father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease while serving in the White House — years before the diagnosis was made.

In “My Father at 100,” a memoir being released Tuesday, the late president’s youngest son, Ron, said he saw evidence that his father was losing his mental faculties during his first term, which began in 1981.

“Today, we are aware that the physiological and neurological changes associated with Alzheimer’s can be in evidence years, even decades, before identifiable symptoms arise,” the younger Reagan wrote. “The question … of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s while in office more or less answers itself.”

The 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth is on Feb. 6th. He died in 2004 at the age of 93.

Reagan said that had his father known he was ill, he would have resigned.

(Article here.)