Is this Japanese yew dying/can this browning be salvaged?

https://imgur.com/a/tQpGmez

I should preface this by saying I'm unfortunately about as unhelpful concerning the situation as someone bringing it up could be. I know nothing of horticulture, this isn't my plant, and I don't have a reliable history of either the plant or the problem. It's at my grandfather's and he only shared his concern with me recently. So this might be impossible for anyone here to evaluate.

I can't get a good comprehensive photo of the browning because this yew has been completely untrimmed and takes up the majority of the front yard and any wide angle obfuscates the majority of the coloration against the general green haze in the light, so I just tried to take as many shots as I could. Holistically though I would say the browning is focused around the interior of the plant, reaching up the majority of the length of some branches (but not all), and the ratio is maybe 1/3rd brown to green needles (which are focused around the tips). Most are golden brown, fewer are yellowed, fewer still are dull. Some have fallen or are prone to fall with jostling, most are firmly attached. Not enough have fallen for me to correlate to the particular shade of browning.

These photos were taken yesterday. The only proper context I can really offer outside of them is that the yew is roughly 30 years old and this has apparently been an issue (if it is one) he's noticed for a couple of seasons now. He maintains the yew has always shed needles for new growth around this time of year but believes the browning has become more widespread in recent years. He can't tell me if there have been any points in recent memory where the entire plant was green. I would point out that it is a very crowded yard but it seems to me most competing plants are toward the exterior of the yew if sharing any space at all. It is by far the dominating plant for soil and sunlight access in the yard. I can separately say I haven't noticed anything obvious on the plant outside of the brown needles that I could isolate from any other given conifer. We live in southeastern New Brunswick, Canada. We haven't been in particularly drought-like conditions the past month or two. That really is all I've got off the top of my head.