Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s while still in White House: Son

WASHINGTON - Former US President Ronald Reagan’s son has claimed in his new book that his father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease while he was still in the White House.

Reagan’s youngest son, Ron, claimed in a new book about his father, “My Father at 100,” that although Regan was formally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in1994, he had noticed the former President struggling with his mental conditions during his first term, which began in 1981.

“I’ve seen no evidence that my father (or anyone else) was aware of his medical condition while he was in office. Had the diagnosis been made in, say 1987, would he have stepped down? I believe he would have,” Politico quoted Ron, as saying in his book.

During a presidential debate in 1984, Ron Reagan said he “began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true” as his father faced off against Democrat Walter Mondale.

“My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered,” he wrote.

He also claimed that his father had in fact started to doubt that he was undergoing some severe problems with this mental health.

In 1986, the then-president “had been alarmed to discover, while flying over the familiar canyons north of Los Angeles, that he could no longer summon their names,” Reagan wrote.n July 1989, doctors had noticed for the time the Regan was suffering from Alzheimer’s when he underwent brain surgery after he fell from a horse, he added. (ANI)