Former President Jimmy Carter has entered home hospice care, the charity founded by the longest-living U.S. president in history said Saturday.

The Carter Center said on Twitter that after a series of short hospital stays, the 98-year-old former president “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention."

It said he has the full support of his medical team and family, which “asks for privacy at this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”

Carter, a Democrat, became the 39th U.S. president when he defeated former President Gerald R. Ford in 1976. He served a single term and was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Read the full statement on Carter's health below:

"After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention. He has the full support of his family and his medical team. The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers."

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Carter celebrated his most recent birthday in October with family and friends in Plains, the tiny Georgia town where he and his wife, Rosalynn, were born in the years between World War I and the Great Depression.

The Carter Center, which the 39th president and the former first lady established after their one White House term, last year marked 40 years of promoting democracy and conflict resolution, monitoring elections, and advancing public health in the developing world.

At the time, Carter Center leaders said the former president, who survived a cancer diagnosis in 2015 and a serious fall at home in 2019, was enjoying reading congratulatory messages sent by well-wishers around the world via social media and the center’s website even before the actual birthday.

James Earl Carter Jr. won the 1976 presidential election after beginning the campaign as a little-known, one-term Georgia governor. His surprise performance in the Iowa caucuses established the small, Midwestern state as an epicenter of presidential politics. Carter went on to defeat Ford in the general election, largely on the strength of sweeping the South before his native region shifted heavily to Republicans.

A Naval Academy alumnus, Navy officer and peanut farmer, Carter won in no small part because of his promise never to lie to an electorate weary over the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that resulted in Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency in 1974. Four years later, unable to tame inflation and salve voter anger over American hostages held in Iran, Carter lost 44 states to Ronald Reagan. He returned home to Georgia in 1981 at the age of 56.

The former first couple almost immediately began planning The Carter Center. It opened in Atlanta in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind effort for a former president. The stated mission: to advance peace, human rights and public health causes around the world. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He traveled internationally into his 80s and 90s, and he did not retire officially from the board until 2020.

In 2019, Carter used his final annual message at the center to lament that his post-presidency had been largely silent on climate change.

Carter himself has mostly retreated from politics. For years after his 1980 defeat, Democrats steered clear of him. He enjoyed a resurgence in recent election cycles, drawing visits from several 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls and, in 2021, from President Joe Biden, who in 1976 was the first U.S. senator to endorse Carter’s presidential bid. With inflation now at its highest levels since the late 1970s and early 1980s, some Republicans are bringing up Carter again as an attack line on Biden and Democrats.

LEBANON, Pa. —

A Pennsylvania army veteran found a way many years ago to relieve stress and is still carving out time for his hobby even though he is not as strong as he used to be.

Joe Yannes is living out his final days in the Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, about 90 minutes outside of Philadelphia.

The 81-year-old, who is in hospice care, worked as a machinist and did a stint in the Army Military Police.

"I really liked the duty part of it, but the spic and shine part – that was pretty hard," he said.

But he is still doing some hard work with the tools of a long-time hobby. He started wood carving after hearing it could cut stress.

"One day I was really pissed at something. I decided to try. After a while, I said, 'This sounds pretty stupid.' But it did cool me down. I didn't realize it," he said.

Yannes has carved horses and other animals, as well as what he calls ball in a cage.

"I never really realized it was good art. Everybody kept telling me about how good it is," he said.

Yannes donated a piece to the hospice staff that is now on display in a glass case. The plaque with it says, "…for their compassion and care of veterans. Carved from a Tree of Life that will always be remembered."

"It's awesome that we'll have a piece of his legacy that he made while he was here," social worker Erin Illyes said.

Yannes has made more than a dozen horses, including three since his time at the medical center. He wants each of his grandchildren to have one.