President Ronald Reagan was called "The Great Communicator" because of the ease with which he could get his ideas across. One of his final messages to "my fellow Americans" was a hand-written letter released on Nov. 5, 1994, in which he disclosed that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, a progressive and irreversible neurological disorder. The poignant note said that he and his wife, Nancy, had decided to disclose the diagnosis in order to promote greater awareness of the disease. Reagan had undergone other physical traumas during his presidency and later years. In 1981, he was wounded in an assassination attempt. In 1985, he was operated on for colon cancer, and two weeks later skin cancer was removed from his nose. In 1989, he was thrown from a horse and had surgery to remove a pool of blood from his brain. On Feb. 6, Reagan turned 87. In March, researchers released a report on a new seven-minute word-and-picture test that may be 90 percent accurate in identifying patients with early Alzheimer's. Further study of the test is under way.

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