Your Name Is Hughes Hannibal Shanks

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.

Author Biography

Lela Knox Shanks (1927–2011) was 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.