The Longest Day: Why We Light It Up From Sunrise to Sunset for Alzheimer's

Today is the summer solstice. The longest day of the year.

For the Alzheimer's Association, it has another name: The Longest Day. It is the flagship awareness day of the dementia community — the one where, from sunrise to sunset, people around the world stand in light to honor those living with Alzheimer's and the families who carry the work of loving them.

If you are a caregiver, today is for you. Whether you participate in any official way or not.

Why The Longest Day was chosen

The Alzheimer's Association chose the summer solstice for a reason that lands the moment you hear it.

For families touched by Alzheimer's, every day is the longest day. The hours stretch. The mornings feel like full days by 10 a.m. The afternoons drift into restless sundowning. The nights crack open with confusion, wandering, or sudden agitation. The work of caring for someone with Alzheimer's reshapes the experience of time itself.

By honoring the literal longest day of the year, the Alzheimer's Association named — gently, accurately, beautifully — what caregivers have always known: this disease lives in time. It steals hours, days, and years. It makes the small hours feel infinite.

To stand in the light from sunrise to sunset on June 20 is to say: we see how long your day is. We see what you carry. We will spend this day with you.

What happens on The Longest Day

Around the world, people mark The Longest Day in ways large and small:

1. Communities host sunrise-to-sunset walks, golf marathons, yoga sessions, paint-a-thons, and music events.
2. Care facilities open their doors for community gatherings.
3. Caregivers and families share photos, stories, and small tributes online.
4. Buildings and landmarks are lit in purple — the color of the Alzheimer's cause.
5. Funds are raised to support research and caregiver services.
6. Quiet, private gatherings happen in living rooms, at kitchen tables, in memory care units.

There is no single right way to mark the day. There is no minimum required participation. Lighting one candle counts. Posting one photo counts. Sitting beside your loved one in the morning sun counts.

Why this day matters to caregivers specifically

Most awareness days are oriented outward — toward education, fundraising, public conversation. The Longest Day does that too. But it does something rarer: it explicitly turns toward caregivers.

The Alzheimer's Association's own framing of the day centers the experience of those who care for the person with dementia, alongside the experience of the person themselves. This is unusual in the awareness landscape, where caregivers are often acknowledged in passing, not centered.

Today, the day is for you.

How to mark the day if you're caregiving

The honest reality is that today is a Saturday. The person you care for needs the same things they always need. Medication. Meals. Help. Patience. The day doesn't stop being The Longest Day because it is also The Longest Day.

Here are gentle ways to mark it without adding stress:

Open the curtains at sunrise. Sit with your morning coffee and watch the light come in. Let it be a small ritual. The day starts the way it always does, but with a moment of awareness that today carries weight.

Light a candle this evening. At sunset, light a candle in honor of your loved one and yourself. Sit with it for five minutes. Don't try to do anything more than be present.

Wear purple, or place something purple in the home. A scarf. A flower. A blanket draped over the couch. A visible reminder that today is held by something larger than this house.

Take one photo. Of your loved one. Of your hands together. Of a flower from the garden. Mark the day in your own family archive.

Reach out to one other caregiver. A text to someone you know is in the same season. "Thinking of you today. The Longest Day is hard. I see you." Five words sent to the right person matters more than most things.

Tell someone what this year has been like. A friend who hasn't asked in a while. A sibling. A coworker. Today is a day where the world is slightly more willing to listen.

A note about hope

The Longest Day is held on the summer solstice for one more reason: from this day forward, the days begin to shorten again. The light shifts. The year turns.

It is — among the heaviness — a day of quiet hope.

Hope that science continues to advance, faster than most people realize. Hope that the families coming behind you will have more tools than you did. Hope that the work you are doing now — invisible to most of the world — is laying down the foundation of a future where this disease is fought differently.

Hope, too, that the season you are in will not last forever. That the long day will eventually shorten, one way or another. That you will return to something resembling rest.

We don't promise this lightly. We say it because most caregivers we know carry, beneath the weight, a small flicker of belief that things can be better. The Longest Day is the day we collectively honor that flicker.

A word from CarePrints

We exist because caregivers asked for tools that meet them where they actually are. Today, on The Longest Day, we want to say plainly: we see what you carry. We see the hours. We see the nights. We see the strain you absorb without applause.

Your work is the most invisible, most important work happening in millions of households today.

We are grateful to be a small part of how you get through. Today and every day.

→ Browse 8,000+ printable activities that bring small good moments into the long day — free at CarePrints.