Los Angeles, June 5 (Reuters): Former US President Ronald Reagan, who forged a conservative revolution that transformed American politics, died on Saturday after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, US media reported. He was 93.

His wife, Nancy, and family members had gathered at his bedside at his house in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles.

Reagan had long been suffering from the brain-wasting disease. Hours before he died, a source said Reagan’s condition had worsened in the past week. “The time is getting close,” he said.

Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, wrote an essay in December 2003 expressing concern that some people might think Reagan was still mobile and active, despite his illness, because his family had guarded his privacy so zealously. “But it would be a disservice to every family who has an Alzheimer’s victim in their embrace to say any of that is true, and I don’t believe my father would want us to lie,” she wrote.

People magazine reported in the same month that Reagan spent his days either in bed or occasionally in a wheelchair.

In May, Reagan’s wife Nancy made an impassioned call supporting controversial stem cell research, saying it could help find a cure for Alzheimer’s, which had taken her husband” to a distant place where I can no longer reach him”.