LOS ANGELES, June 7: Former US first lady Nancy Reagan felt a "sense of relief" when 93-year-old Ronald Reagan died after a tough 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease, a family spokeswoman said on Sunday.

"While it is an extremely sad time for Mrs Reagan, there is definitely a sense of relief that he is no longer suffering and that he has gone to another place," said his chief of staff Joanne Drake.

Ronald Reagan, who announced in Nov 1994 that he was suffering from the irreversible and debilitating brain disease that robbed him of his memory, did not recognize his wife or family members in the last years of his life.

His daughter Patti revealed in December that he could no longer talk, walk or feed himself and that he was confined to a hospital bed, with the 82-year-old Nancy almost constantly by his side.

"It's been a really hard for her for 10 years," Drake said after reading out a brief statement from the former first lady. "Mrs Reagan and her family are deeply touched by the outpouring of sympathy from across the country and around the world.

"As you can understand, the family is in deep mourning over the loss of a husband, a father, a grandfather and their hero," Drake said. Nancy Reagan and her two children Ron and Patti were at Reagan's bedside when he died in his Los Angeles mansion on Saturday, Drake said, declining to offer further details of when his health finally declined when he caught pneumonia.

But his son, Michael, who was adopted by Reagan and his first wife Jane Wyman, just missed his father's death after being caught in Los Angeles' notorious traffic, Drake said.

Drake told a press conference outside the mortuary in the Santa Monica district of Los Angeles, where he is being prepared to lie in state, that the family had been besieged by "thousands" of telephone calls from dignitaries and movie stars offering their condolences and sympathy.

Hollywood movie star Charlton Heston, who last year revealed that he too is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was among those to call his close friend Nancy Reagan, who is also a former film actress.

President George Bush called twice after failing to reach Nancy Reagan on his first attempt, and offered her his full support and that of First Lady Laura Bush. -AFP