Paleo, it is not a disease. There is nothing wrong with the rose. It simply does not need to use those growth nodes so they eventually dry up. It's a matter of conservation. Why use energy to keep supplying food and water to an unneeded part? Roses often shed leaves that are no longer producing food for the plant. They just stop feeding and watering them. They yellow and fall off. This usually happens to older leaves near the bottom or deep in the interior that don't get enough sun anymore to do photosynthesis. If you can't earn you keep, you have to go.
Vap, you don't. At least not from that spot anyway. That's why freeze and thaw is such a bad thing in cold climates. If the weather is too warm too soon the rose starts to grow. Then there is a sudden freeze and that new growth is killed. If that happens several times before it warms up and stays warm you will lose that growth node completely and the rose either dies or has to start new cane growth from the roots. The problem with that is that it no longer has the energy reserves it stored to start spring growth anymore. It used that up on the early starts that died off. And it has no leaves to produce more food. So in the end the rose dies. That's why I never prune my roses in the fall. I want as much cane as possible come spring for the rose to have more chances to come back. Usually die back starts at the top. If you have a three foot cane and you have to prune it back to a foot or so you still have lots of cane for the rose to work with. But if you prune it down in the fall to a foot come spring and that foot of cane has died back you're out of luck.
