Your Name Is Hughes Hannibal Shanks: A Caregiver's Guide To Alzheimers »

Lela Knox Shanks is an independent scholar and lecturer living in Lincoln, Nebraska. She and Hughes were married for fifty years and have four children. Hughes Hannibal Shanks worked for the federal government for thirty years and was the first African American hired by the Denver Social Security Administration office in the 1950s. This edition includes an epilogue by Lela. Steven H. Zarit is a professor of human development at Pennsylvania State University. He is also the coauthor of The Hidden Victims of Alzheimer’s Disease: Families under Stress.

Your Name Is Hughes Hannibal Shanks is Lela Knox Shanks’s personal account of caring for her husband, Hughes, in their home after he was stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. Lela describes her initial denial, her discovery of coping skills, her eventual acceptance of his illness, and her ultimate recognition that the key to successful caregiving lies in never losing sight of the patient’s humanness. The book outlines twenty coping and survival strategies to guide caregivers to untapped inner resources and shows caregiving’s intangible rewards of increased self-respect and self-knowledge.

Publishers Weekly

In August 1984, Lela Knox Shanks saw the first sign that her life and that of her husband would change forever. "Hughes was driving, and suddenly he called me Nena, our older daughter's name... he continued to repeat the mistake.... And then he said, `How are the kids doing in the back seat?'" As their children were all grown, she knew something was wrong. Shanks had shown the first sign of Alzheimer's: "Irreversible and deadly, it is the fourth leading cause of death in adults in the United States today," Shanks explains in her introduction. Experts frequently recommend placement in a nursing home, but Shanks rejected that idea, in part strengthened by the knowledge that she had already cared for her parents, who died of cancer. With very little information about the disease, she set out on her own, learning as she went how to care for an Alzheimer's patient at home. Shanks tells exactly what it is like to live with Alzheimer's, and how to have a life in the process. She provides an overview of how the disease progresses, tells what to expect and suggests ways to cope. Hughes Shanks had spent 30 years working for the federal government and was the first African American hired by his Social Security Administration office in the 1950s. For his wife, the key became to remember his courage and pride and to continue to see her husband, no matter how diminished in capacity, as a human being in need of her love and care. Shanks is a remarkably strong woman, and her choice might not be right for everyone, but all can learn from her experience. (Nov.)