Louise Aronson

This is a big, ambitious book that is worth reading by anyone facing old age, which is everyone. San Francisco geriatrician Louise Aronson mines her decades of experience working with elderly patients to reveal nuggets of wisdom and hope, as well as a challenge for the American Healthcare System to do better. Unfortunately, the book is at least 150 pages too long. While the insights are keen and the anecdotes and case studies rich with illustration, it is often repetitive and gets sidetracked into like a memoire.

Those closer to (or in) the third act of life (after childhood and adulthood), should benefit from a better understanding of what to expect and plan for. I hope younger readers will gain a better understanding and appreciation of their possible future and what their elders are facing now.… (altro)

First, the negatives. I am so glad to be done with this 300-page book. Did this woman have any editor whatsoever? She must have put down every single thought on the subject of elderliness that ever entered her mind.

Now the positives. I liked learning about geriatrics. I feel a geriatrician is exactly what my mother-in-law needs - a whole-person doctor. (If only I could get her out of the house to see one.)

And I did feel inspired to bookmark one thing. Why do we all hesitate to call ourselves "old"? "Imagine a forty- or fifty-year-old saying, 'I don't like to think of myself as an adult. I'm just a kid who's been around a few extra years.'" Well, actually, I can and do know at least one person who's said something to that effect, so, not so shocking... "Or a children's hospital that eschews the term 'child' because of its association with immaturity, and instead markets itself as serving short, unemployed people." OK, that part is funny to imagine.… (altro)

I made it through a little more than half of this book before bailing on it, something I seldom do. It began to become more about the author than the subject: elder medicine. Being a 72-year-old with many of the maladies mentioned in the book, I was interested to learn about the medical care that affected me: geriatric medicine. And I did learn a lot, but the book was too long and became, as I said, as much about the author’s personal psychological and physical problems as about her field of choice. Even having not finished the book, I did take away several points. First, geriatric medicine earns little respect either in the medical field or in society in general. This coincides with the general lack of respect for older citizens in society today. Second, the field of geriatric medicine doesn’t received the support it deserves, and facilities that care for older Americans (“assisted care,” nursing homes, etc.) are woefully unregulated and often ignored to the detriment of the older people housed there. As Baby Boomers age, ignoring elder care is just not going to be possible. Our numbers will make that unfeasible. However, whether additional attention improves geriatrics is another thing all together.… (altro)