The Denial of Aging: Perpetual Youth, Eternal Life, and Other Dangerous Fantasies

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Muriel R. Gillick, M.D.

The Denial of Aging

Perpetual Youth, Eternal Life, and Other Dangerous Fantasies

Muriel R. Gillick, M.D.

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English

Harvard University Press
30 October 2007

Coping with old age

"You've argued politics with your aunt since high school, but failing eyesight now prevents her from keeping current with the newspaper. Your mother fractured her hip last year and is confined to a wheelchair. Your father has Alzheimer's and only occasionally recognizes you. Someday, as Muriel Gillick points out in this important yet unsettling book, you too will be old. And no matter what vitamin regimen you're on now, you will likely one day find yourself sick or frail. How do you prepare? What will you need?

With passion and compassion, Gillick chronicles the stories of elders who have struggled with housing options, with medical care decisions, and with finding meaning in life. Skillfully incorporating insights from medicine, health policy, and economics, she lays out action plans for individuals and for communities. In addition to doing all we can to maintain our health, we must vote and organize-for housing choices that consider autonomy as well as safety, for employment that utilizes the skills and wisdom of the elderly, and for better management of disability and chronic disease.

Most provocatively, Gillick argues against desperate attempts to cure the incurable. Care should focus on quality of life, not whether it can be prolonged at any cost. ""A good old age,"" writes Gillick, ""is within our grasp."" But we must reach in the right direction."

By: Muriel R. Gillick M.D.
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 19mm
Weight: 418g
ISBN: 9780674025431
ISBN 10: 0674025431
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 30 October 2007
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Prelude 1. An Ounce of Prevention? 2. When Less Is More 3. Doing the Right Thing Near the End 4. The Trouble with Medicare 5. Is a Nursing Home in Your Future? 6. Assisted Living: Boon or Boondoggle? 7. The Lure of Immortality 8. Making the Most of the Retirement Years Finale Appendix: Resources and References Notes Acknowledgments Index

Muriel R. Gillick, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Ambulatory Care and Prevention at Harvard Medical School. She is a staff physician for Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and she is also on the medical staff of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Faulkner Hospital.

Reviews for The Denial of Aging: Perpetual Youth, Eternal Life, and Other Dangerous Fantasies

Gillick's book could not appear at a better time. We should send a copy to every member of Congress, as well as to all those doctors peddling bogus antiaging remedies. Readers need her message more than ever, but, alas, they seem unlikely to hear it at all as they rush to pick up prescriptions for human growth hormone, antioxidants, or other dangerous fantasies that Gillick decries.--Harry R. Moody Hastings Center Report (09/01/2007)