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

From diets to cutting-edge diagnostic technology, Americans spend billions of dollars—not to mention untold hours of anxiety—staving off the aging process. In this readable examination of growing old and learning to live with it, Gillick, a Harvard Medical School associate professor, is pitiless as she critiques the current medical mantra of "health maintenance," observing that warding off death via endless testing and dangerous invasive procedures is "a hopeless and counterproductive aim" hurting, rather than helping, the elderly. She persuasively argues for "intermediate care," "a middle ground between maximally aggressive care and exclusively comfort-oriented care" involving, among other things, less expensive screening for some ailments after a certain age and, when possible, treating patients at home. This means fewer trips to the emergency room and fewer admissions to hospitals, which, in addition to being the most expensive means of delivering health care, also have proven to be places where the elderly actually suffer unnecessarily and often die prematurely. Gillick concludes that "a good old age is within our grasp," provided we rethink our approach to urgent or acute care, provide compassionate support to the elderly, and accept the fact that no one lives forever. (Mar.)