Natalie Morales On Her Mother-In-Law’s Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease

InnovationHealthcareNatalie Morales On Her Mother-In-Law’s Early-Onset Alzheimer’s DiseaseByBruce Y. Lee,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Bruce Y. Lee, M.D., MBA, covers health, medicine, wellness and scienceFollow AuthorJun 05, 2026, 09:06am EDTJun 05, 2026, 09:06am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.CBS News corespondent Natalie Morales maintains a very active lifestyle, which is beneficial for brain health. (Photo: Courtesy of Natalie Morales)Courtesy of Natalie MoralesIf you do a Google, Bing, Duck-Duck-Go or Perplexity search for “53 years of age,” you’ll find lots of stuff on the Internet about how great it is to be that age and how happy 53-year-olds tend to be. For CBS News Correspondent Natalie Morales, though, being 53 years of age does bring something else to mind—namely the importance of brain health. “My mother-in-law’s name was Kay Rhodes, and she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease right around my age," Morales recently told me. “When you’re dealt that blow, whether as the patient, as a caregiver or as part of the family, it’s a blow that affects the entire family. And it certainly did with our families.” Rhodes went on to pass away in March 2014 at the age of 72. “She lived with the disease for 17 years because her body was still young,” Morales explained. “But at that point, her brain and her mind were far gone.” And Morales, who also used to host the CBS series “The Talk,” talked to me about what happened and why she’s now talking about brain health. What Is Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease Morales used the term early-onset because that’s what you would call any appearance of Alzheimer’s disease before age 65. And early-onset or younger-onset does account for about five to 10 percent of all Alzheimer’s cases. If you somehow think that Alzheimer’s disease is exclusively for older adults, yo...