John Dunlop brings to this most excruciating mile of the road informed science, the 
gentlest spirit, and a deep conviction that God’s care does not flee the human person who finds himself or herself afflicted with dementia. Nor does mercy abandon those who care for the dementia sufferer. I imagine this last group accounts for most readers of this very fine and wisely titled guidebook for one of life’s darker passages.
The author has skin in this game, if such words can be used without offense in this context. His medical specialization brings him into the care of just such patients and of those who love them. And his family history makes it likely that Dunlop himself will one day sense the fog beginning to thicken.
The result is an exceedingly caring book.
I bought this not because my family had been touched, strictly speaking, by dementia. Rather, my late father’s decline in two nursing homes gradually tightened the horizons of his life and altered the man he had been in ways that are proximate enough to dementia to have made this book a prudent choice.
I ended up buying additional copies and giving them away. You may, too.
soldier on the right is my son, a soldier among four soldiers that have surprised us in this generation. He stands with a college buddy at my son’s graduation from the U.S. Army’s Pathfinder School. 
Canter Bridge 