Alzheimer's Disease: It is Like the Setting Sun

Alzheimer's Disease: It Is Like the Setting Sun is a caregiver's guide written by a man who lived it. Lawrence A. Yaggi Jr., a 96-year-old Navy veteran of the Korean War and a retired electrical engineer, cared for his wife Kathryn "Kathie" through the long progression of Alzheimer's disease until her death at home in October 2023. He wrote this book during that final year of caregiving.The result is neither a medical textbook nor a memoir, but something more immediately useful to families in the middle of it. Nine clear chapters cover what Alzheimer's does to the brain, how to recognize the early, middle, and late stages, practical day-to-day caregiving and home safety, communication strategies, caregiver burnout and the value of respite, building a medical care team, legal and financial planning, end-of-life care and hospice, and the layered grief that follows.What distinguishes this guide are the Personal Notes woven through every chapter, where the author sets clinical information beside his own experience: the door lock that finally let him sleep, the hours spent over jigsaw puzzles, the depression that nearly overtook him, the moment Kathie no longer recognized him as her husband and resisted the most intimate care. He is candid about waiting far too long to ask for help, and about the daughter who sold her home and left her career so that he would not have to carry it alone.Written with warmth and hard-won practicality, this book is for spouses, adult children, and anyone who became a caregiver without ever choosing the role. It closes with a directory of national caregiving, respite, legal, and hospice resources.