Former US first lady Rosalynn Carter enters hospice care at home

Carter family 'grateful for the outpouring of love and support'

The 96-year-old is at home with her husband, former president Jimmy Carter. AP

Former US first lady Rosalynn Carter is in hospice care at her home in Plains, Georgia, the Carter Centre announced on Friday.

The centre said the 96-year-old is at home with former president Jimmy Carter, now 99.

The Carter family said through the statement that they are “grateful for the outpouring of love and support”.

The family announced earlier this year that the former first lady was suffering from dementia. The former president entered hospice care at home in February.

The presidential couple have been married for more than 77 years.

Through the decades, the couple ran the business together and worked side by side to build Mr Carter's political career. Mrs Carter said her husband often took her advice on things with regard to the business, and Mr Carter described his wife as “much more political”.

Mr Carter was elected to the presidency in 1976 and after his 1980 defeat, the couple established the Carter Centre in Atlanta, which advocates human rights, democracy and public health.

During her time as first lady and in the decades after, Mrs Carter became a strong advocate for mental health, heading the Carter Centre Mental Health Task Force and founding an annual mental health forum for professionals and consumers in her home state of Georgia.

The National visits the hometown of Jimmy Carter