When former President Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease a decade ago, he referred to it as, "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."

As the nation reflects on the passing of the former president, there is renewed focus on the illness that clouded his later years.

The prognosis for patients diagnosed today, is brighter than it was in 1994.

Nancy Reagan is reported to have a sense of relief that her husband is no longer suffering.

That's an emotion Lil Jeppesen knows well. The Council Bluffs nurse lost her father to Alzheimer's.

Lil says that before the disease, her father was a carpenter who could build anything.

"I said I wanted my kitchen larger. The next thing I knew my mom and dad came down, tore up my kitchen and made it larger," Lil says.

But like President Reagan, her father was robbed of the last 10 years of his life.

Ms. Jeppesen says, "That's another thing with Alzheimer's. You lose them twice."

But there is new hope in the form of new medications that have been approved in the past decade.

Dr. Patrico Reyes, with Creighton Medical Center, says, "When the president was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, we just had the first medication approved for Alzheimer's disease. Now we have five. So we have advanced quite a bit."

And Dr. Reyes says the latest medicine approved even treats severe cases. He says doctors also have more theories about why Alzheimer lesions form on the brain and he says he's hoping for a breakthrough in his lifetime.

Dr. Reyes says, "This is one, perhaps, of the legacies that President Reagan and Nancy helped the cause of Alzheimer's disease significantly."

Lil Jeppesen says, "It was wonderful that they did that. They brought it to the nation that we do need to look at and we do need to conquer."

Alzheimer's Fact Sheet