Jimmy Carter Health update: How is the 98-year-old doing now?

Former President Jimmy Carter, the longest-living American president at 98, has approached a home hospice in Plains, Georgia, according to a declaration from The Carter Center on Saturday.

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Jimmy Carter Health update

In a statement, Carter, 98, has "decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and obtain hospice care instead of extra medical intervention" after a series of brief hospital stays.

The 39th US president has the complete backing of his medical team and family, who "ask for privacy at this time and are grateful again for the concerns shown by his admirers."

Hospice care is defined as people caring for terminally ill patients in which the priority is to reduce pain and discomfort towards the end of life rather than to provide additional treatment. The former president lives in Plains, Georgia, with his wife, Rosalynn Carter, 95, in a moderate ranch house built by the couple in 1961.

For years, Carter has thwarted illness and death, outliving two presidents who came after him in addition to his own vice president. In March 2019, he passed ex-president George H.W. Bush, who expired the previous November, to become the longest-living president.

Jimmy Carter served a single turbulent term before being beaten by Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980. That paved Carter's way for reforms to improve democracy, public health, and human rights through The Carter Center.

Carter was a political sensation in his day, a fresh Democrat who shocked the political world by beating a slew of more well-known opponents to capture his party's presidential nomination in 1976. He would unseat the incumbent Republican administration, Gerald R. Ford, in the fall.

During his four years in office, Carter worked to rebuild trust in the government after the War in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, heralding reform proposals intended to transform politics. He negotiated the historic Camp David accords that established peace between Israel and Egypt, an accord that remains the bedrock of Middle Eastern relations.

In many ways, Jimmy Carter's work as a former leader surpassed his moments in the White House, earning him the Nobel Prize for Peace and improving his image in the eyes of many Americans.