Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and founder of the Special Olympics, has been hospitalized at the UCLA Medical Center after suffering a minor stroke, the hospital said on Monday.
Shriver, 84, entered the hospital on Saturday, and also is being treated for a stress fracture of the left hip.
“Doctors anticipate a short hospital stay,” UCLA Medical Center said in a statement.
A hospital spokesman declined further comment.
Shriver is the mother of California’s first lady, Maria Shriver, the wife of Robert Sargent Shriver, the first director of the U.S. Peace Corps, and the sister of Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.
She founded the Special Olympics, which seeks to empower people with intellectual disabilities to develop their skills through sports training and competition. More than 1.3 million children and adults with intellectual disabilities participate in Special Olympics in 150 countries around the world, according to the Special Olympics Web site.
Shriver is one of nine children of Joseph Kennedy and a member of the Kennedy political dynasty. Her husband was a U.S. ambassador to France in the late 1960s and ran for vice president in 1972 with presidential candidate George McGovern.
The pair have five children including Maria Shriver, the television journalist who married actor-turned-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A lifelong Democrat, Shriver supported Republican Schwarzenegger in his bid for the governor’s seat.
She is a well-known social activist who has worked to improve the lives of the mentally disabled. In 1984, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan.
