Jeb Bush opens up about mother-in-law's dementia
Likely Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spoke candidly about his family's familiarity with Alzheimer's disease at a New Hampshire event Wednesday.
"My mother-in-law has dementia and she's 94 years old," Bush said as he prepared to leave a house party with New Hampshire.
At a business roundtable earlier Wednesday, the possible 2016 candidate broached issues affecting elderly Americans.
"There's one place where we have significantly underfunded, and that is Alzheimer's," Bush said when speaking about entitlement reform.
He asked people to raise their hands if they knew a relative that suffered from the disease with Alzheimer's.
"I'll raise my hand first so I'm not crying here," Bush said, putting his hand in the air. "We all have family members who are struggling."
When reporters later asked who in his family was afflicted with Alzheimer's, he elaborated that it was his wife's mother, Josefina Gallo Esquive. Esquive, who lives in Miami, is cared for by Bush's wife, Columba, and his wife's sister.
"She's a gift from God. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever met," the former Florida governor told reporters at the house party. "Just totally faith-oriented, just the sweetest, nicest person. And she suffers from dementia. It's not uncommon, this is a huge problem."
An estimated 5.3 million Americans suffer from the disease, according to numbers from the Alzheimer's Association.
CBS News' Lindsey Boerma contributed to this report.