HOUSTON >> Former President George H.W. Bush was released from a Houston hospital Tuesday after a stay of about a week for treatment of shortness of breath.

The 90-year-old Bush left Houston’s Methodist Hospital, was resting at home and is "grateful to the doctors and nurses for their superb care," family spokesman Jim McGrath said in a brief statement.

Bush, the oldest living former U.S. president, was taken by ambulance to the hospital a week ago for what was described then as a precaution after experiencing shortness of breath. His hospital stay included Christmas.

The former president spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care at the same hospital while being treated for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues. He was discharged in January 2013 after a nearly two-month stay.

Bush made two public appearances last month. He was at Texas A&M University where his son, former President George W. Bush, talked about his book about his father. He also served as the coin-toss captain for the Houston Texans during a Nov. 23 game that honored the U.S. Armed Forces.

He spent Sunday at the hospital watching the Texans game on television.

The elder Bush was a naval aviator in World War II — at one point the youngest in the Navy — and was shot down over the Pacific.

He served two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president before being elected the nation’s 41st president in 1988. After one term, highlighted by the success of the 1991 Gulf War in Kuwait, he lost to Democrat Bill Clinton amid voters’ concerns about the economy.

Bush has skydived on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House. In June, he celebrated his 90th birthday by making a tandem parachute jump near his summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. During the winter, Bush and his wife, Barbara, live in Houston.

Bush, also a former U.S. ambassador to China and CIA director, has a form of Parkinson’s disease that has forced him in recent years to use a motorized scooter or wheelchair for mobility.