Ted Turner died battling Lewy body dementia. I know that fight. | Opinion
Ted Turner and his family could afford the level of care and privacy he needed. I had to travel halfway around the world to give my husband care at a cost that would not wipe out our savings.
My heart lurched when I learned that Ted Turner, CNN founder, media mogul and philanthropist, died May 6 at age 87 after a years-long battle with Lewy body dementia. And for two reasons.
One was that I immediately conjured up meeting Turner in mid-1980s Moscow. We shook hands and I told him that I was a journalist with UPI (United Press International) and that my companion was with the AP (Associated Press).
He roared with laughter and joked loudly: "Oh, UP, AP, I pee, we all pee!” Yep, not hard to see why he was called the “Mouth of the South.”
The deeper reason was a wrenching synchronicity: My late husband, Dusko Doder, a renowned Washington Post journalist, also died at age 87, also after a protracted struggle with LBD, as Lewy body dementia is known.
Ted Turner's death draws much-needed attention to LBD horrors ‒ and caregivers
The attention Turner’s death is drawing to LBD is much needed. It is the second most common dementia in the United States after Alzheimer’s disease, affecting about 1.4 million people. The number could be higher.
LBD is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s because it shares such symptoms as memory loss, confusion, muscle stiffness and hallucinations. Actor Robin Williams’ LBD was only diagnosed after his death by a brain autopsy. Williams died by suicide in 2014 after becoming terrified by LBD symptoms that his widow called "the terrorist inside my husband's brain."
That description is devastatingly apt.
But Turner’s death should not only draw attention to LBD‘s horrors, it should also boost awareness of the toll it takes on family caregivers.
People with LBD typically live five to eight years from diagnosis. A 2025 report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving found that 63 million Americans ‒ nearly 1 in 4 adults ‒ are family caregivers. That’s a 45% increase in only a decade. The number will continue to rise as the population ages.
The report also highlighted the enormous financial, physical and emotional strain on caregivers, particularly those caring for loved ones with dementias such as LBD.
'Thailand's Last Resort' helped me care for my husband
I began to confront that toll when Dusko started suffering from early LBD symptoms ‒ falling, hallucinations, confusion, disturbed sleep. I investigated the cost of getting the kind of long-term care Medicare generally does not cover. I did not yet know that in his final one and a half year he would not be able to speak, feed himself or even turn over in bed.
Prices ranged from tens of thousands of dollars a year for a few hours of home help per week, to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for round-the-clock care in a nursing home. We had saved for a comfortable retirement. We had not budgeted for this.
About 1 in 4 caregivers, AARP says, has to take on debt to survive.
Turner and his family, unlike many, if not most, Americans, could afford the level of care and privacy he needed. In his final years, he retreated from public life and spent much of his time on his Montana ranch. He passed away on another ranch in Florida.
I had to travel half way around the world to give Dusko similar care at a cost that would not wipe out our savings.
I found affordable, high-level care in Thailand, which has an excellent medical network and affordable caregiving. At first, we lived at an assisted living resort in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, an experience captured in the documentary "Thailand’s Last Resort." I could then afford to move him to a spacious rental house with a pool and a separate wing for his two private caregivers. Our two sons and daughter-in-law came for several months, giving us precious final family time.
In Dusko’s last year and a half, I moved him to a nursing home where he got intensive round-the-clock attention in a sunlit private room overlooking the Ping River. I rented a small apartment nearby.
Dusko’s long, slow mental and physical decline still exacted an emotional cost on me. As LBD advanced, Dusko slowly morphed from being my brilliant partner into a hostile stranger. I tried to keep his memory alive by completing his memoir, "The Inconvenient Journalist," which chronicled his storied career and successful court fight to clear his name after an unfounded smear.
Ted Turner’s death has put a welcome spotlight on LBD and, by extension, on the toll that it and other degenerative diseases take on sufferers and caregivers. Mitigating that toll should include paying family caregivers, providing more Medicare coverage, better regulation of nursing homes and more.
Turner’s death may have silenced the “Mouth of the South,” but it can and should amplify a national conversation about America’s caregiving affordability crisis.
Louise Branson is a former foreign and war correspondent for the London Sunday Times, a former USA TODAY editorial writer and coauthor of three books, including "The Inconvenient Journalist."