Singer Etta James battling Alzheimer's disease, says son

[bijou]

Singer Etta James has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, her son said this weekend. The American music legend is currently in hospital, receiving treatment for several conditions including a blood infection.

"She's been in a pretty big battle," Donto James told Reuters on Saturday. The 72-year-old legend spent the last week in a Riverside, California hospital. She became sick while undergoing rehabilitation for an addiction to painkillers, her son said, and is now suffering from a blood infection and the MRSA superbug. The infection, which has been diagnosed as sepsis, reportedly began as a urinary tract infection.

Doctors hope to discharge James "very soon", her son told CNN, following which she will be transferred to a nursing home. The singer was apparently diagnosed with Alzheimer's more than a year ago, although this was not made public. In hospital she has been combative, Donto said, and "right now she is very confused". The singer is also suffering from speech difficulties, the cause of which is unknown. ...

link (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/01/etta-james)


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[noonwitch]

I love Etta's music, but that nursing home better have some muscular patient aides if they are going to deal with her behavior. She was pissed off enough that Beyonce played her in Cadillac Records (she didn't think Beyonce was "street" enough to play her). I don't think she's going to take to nursing home life easily.

Etta's been a junkie, a pill popper and a legendary singer. Her boys will take good care of her-they've kept her from going broke over the past couple of decades and kept her making records when most former junkies would have just burned out and disappeared.

I'm not buying the pill addiction with septecesis, though. Junkies get septic, not pill poppers.

[Bubba Dawg]

I love Etta's music, but that nursing home better have some muscular patient aides if they are going to deal with her behavior. She was pissed off enough that Beyonce played her in Cadillac Records (she didn't think Beyonce was "street" enough to play her). I don't think she's going to take to nursing home life easily.

Etta's been a junkie, a pill popper and a legendary singer. Her boys will take good care of her-they've kept her from going broke over the past couple of decades and kept her making records when most former junkies would have just burned out and disappeared.

I'm not buying the pill addiction with septecesis, though. Junkies get septic, not pill poppers.

Dang Home Girl. You seem to have some serious street cred......:eek::D

[noonwitch]

Dang Home Girl. You seem to have some serious street cred......:eek::D



23 year career in children's services in Detroit. I also lived in the city for 12 of those years, and not in the "copper valley" neighborhoods.

[SaintLouieWoman]

Etta's kids have a rough road ahead of them. My own mom was always very quiet, never rowdy. But she had vascular dementia (basically the same as Alzheimers), and she became quite a hand full. I'd get calls from the nursing home, asking me to talk to my mom to calm her down and ask her to behave. She barricaded herself in her room one time, because she refused to let anyone come into her room. It seems she had an appointment at their in-house beauty parlor, and decided she wouldn't allow them to wash her hair. There were other incidents that weren't pleasant.

They'd always tell her they would be calling me if she wouldn't cooperate. I've been taking the hounds there for 12 years for the pet therapy, so I know they were making reasonable requests. It was basically a nice home.

It's a tough disease and must be so difficult if the person had so many preexisting conditions like Etta.