Longtime aide to Rosalynn Carter on her decades-long work advocating for caregivers and mental health care

Kathy Cade has worked alongside Rosalynn Carter for more than five decades.

Cade, who serves as the vice chair of The Carter Center, and a board member of Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, says she started working with the former first lady in 1976.

Earlier this week, The Carter Center announced that Carter has dementia,  a disease that affects a person’s mental health, specifically their memory, thinking, and the ability to perform daily activities. 

“We recognize, as she did more than half a century ago, that stigma is often a barrier that keeps individuals and their families from seeking and getting much-needed support,” said The Carter Center in a statement. We hope sharing our family’s news will increase important conversations at kitchen tables and in doctor’s offices around the country.”

On Wednesday, edition of the “Closer Look” Cade talked with Rose about Carter’s life and legacy and her decades-long work for advocating for caregivers and the reduction of stigma surrounding mental health.

“She has played the role that she has as an advocate for those people who are so vulnerable, and I can only hope that we all kind of pick up her legacy and continue to move forward with the work that was so, so very important to her,” said Cade.