Fabares Tells of Mother’s Alzheimer’s

Television actress Shelley Fabares says Alzheimer’s disease robbed her mother of the memory that she preferred suicide to suffering from the mind-killing affliction.

Fabares, starring in the “Coach” series, said she learned of her mother’s preoccupation with the disease after she had to take over her affairs.

“In taking over her papers, I discovered that she’d been making donations to an Alzheimer’s association for years,” Fabares told an interviewer for Redbook magazine.

“Mother once told my sister that if she ever found out she had Alzheimer’s, she would kill herself,” Fabares said. “Fortunately, by the time she was diagnosed, she was too far gone to remember what she’d said.”

Her mother had to be institutionalized in February, the actress said.