Sargent Shriver was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, a common type of dementia, in 2003. He died in January 2011 after a long battle with the disease at the age of 95. "He was a man of giant love, energy, enthusiasm, and commitment," said the Shriver family, as reported by ABC News. "He worked on stages both large and small but in the end, he will be best known for his love of others."

His alma mater Yale University also summed up Sargent's life as a compassionate activist who wanted to improve the lives of others. "Human life is too valuable to be wasted by war or by poverty or by indifference," Yale Daily News quoted Sargent as previously saying. "But we sometimes seem to be doing exactly that — not knowingly, not willfully perhaps — but simply because we often live in a value vacuum ... If these are problems that are bothering you, they are the same ones that are bothering me, also. The question is, what can we do about it?" His daughter, Maria Shriver, has also applied this sentiment to her own life, as much of her activism has to do with Alzheimer's disease, as inspired by Sargent.