The Denial of Aging: Perpetual Youth, Eternal Life, and Other Dangerous Fantasies
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List Price: $16.95
Our Price: $12.71
Your Save: $ 4.24 ( 25% )
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Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 362
EAN: 9780674025431
ISBN: 0674025431
Label: Harvard University Press
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2007-10-30
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Studio: Harvard University Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Listen to a short interview with Dr. Muriel Gillick
Host: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane 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. (20060824)
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic compilation of the issues facing aged care today
Comment: This book pulls together all of the different components that impact on many of the issues facing aged care today. As a nurse in another country, reading this book gives me an understanding of the challenges and opportunities to come.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Advocacy Piece
Comment: While I give this book great credit for presenting the facts in the face of too many *live forever* books currently on the market, it also has it own agenda and just does not talk about anything not related to it.
The author suggests that medicaid / medicare should take on the long term care of elders. But does not discuss the financial reality of such a situation or, indeed, if it is wise. Most elders that are infirm are for 10 years or less. Is it really wise to potentially take on another large entitlement to mildly make things better for elders and families? Further there is no mention of long term care policies or elders' savings specifically for these years. There is no reasonable alternative presented for those who read this book looking to prepare the best they can. The author talks about the current abuse of medicaid and then goes on to advocate for medicaid to take on more for elders. Wouldn't that just provide for more abuse?
I also take issue with the idea that because people are focusing on *living forever* they are not not focusing on being elderly and preparing. I am not sure that is true, but her own book is filled with current 85 year olds who did not prepare whatsoever for being elderly. So what was their excuse? The idea of becoming old and infirm is a depressing one. Most people, such as my mother, do not want to think about it until forced to do so. I actually think many of these "live forever" books at least force discussion about aging and may in fact actually result in people taking better care of themselves and living better quality of life. My mom, currently 85, fully expected to die in her sleep at 75 so she did not plan and she did not take care of herself. Nor did she know there was any options. She was not aware of long term care policies (nor where they around) and she was not aware of antioxidants and things she could do for her aging knees. Left in the care of her doctors, much like the author here, who subscribed to the "your old - why bother" practice of medicine - she is now closer to infirmity.
I would say the book gets 3 stars for the great chapter on assisted living. Last year I had the opportunity to look at some assisted living facilities and I was very disappointed. They are all marketing and very little follow through. But I gleaned from management that they were not doing too well, so it is my feeling that people are starting to get wise to the assisted living *bait and switch.*
Overall a book that is good to read for the sharply different view from most books today. But I only wish the author had presented a more fair differing view of aging.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A VERY INTERESTING READ!
Comment: Thank you, Muriel, for writing a book that gives us permission to relax into the best years of our lives. Running after youth is an exhausting pursuit --- it robs of our personal and spiritual growth. I especially enjoyed the personal anecdotes and stories from your files. I hope every woman reads your book. Pamela D. Blair, Author, The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Mid-Life And Beyond
Customer Rating:
Summary: A prescription for a better medical care system as well as for us
Comment: Denial of Aging is both a call to arms and a personal guide. It connects two themes: 1) most of us will become infirm eventually; 2) when that happens, our medical care system will fail us, often worsening quality of life instead of improving it. Two kinds of failures are Medicare rules that favor institutional care over care at home, and a fixation on (expensive) high tech treatments that have a low chance of success in the infirm elderly, but that carry a high rate of complications. Dr. Gillick shows that we can avoid some of these problems through individual choices, but that others require concerted political action -- for instance, making Medicare more responsive to the needs of the infirm elderly.
After you read this, send it to your legislators.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best book on aging...Must read for boomers, MDs,RNs, and anyone growing old...
Comment: Whether you are a boomer about to face aging or a clinician advising patients, you will age more gracefully by reading this extremely readable and well-written book by one of this country's foremost geriatricians. As in her other books, Muriel Gillick makes the stories come alive in technicolor, which is no easy task when nursing home and senility are the subject matter. And that's exactly the point: Dr. Gillick breaks the aging stereotypes that most of us conjure when thinking about aging. Whether it's preventive medicine, health policy, or just what stance one should have towards growing old, you will walk away with a more informed and humane understanding of what aging means and how we can all live our life's final few chapters gracefully.
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