My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing "Slow Medicine," the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones

If I had an unlimited amount of cash, I would buy thousands of copies of MY MOTHER, YOUR MOTHER. Here's who I'd give them to: Every doctor, nurse, aide, medical assistant, physical and occupational therapist, specialist, psychologist, counselor, social worker, medical insurance person, Medicare and medicaid worker, pharmacist, physician's assistant....I'd give a copy to every medical student, dentist, lab tech, optometrist, and to every adult with a parent over the age of 50, with any relative or friend in frail health. I'd give it to my neices and nephews, my mailman, the funeral director over on Main Street... You get the idea. MMYM is practical and wise. Dr. McCullough returns something we mistakenly handed to modern medicine: how to care for our loved ones, and be part of their lives during their frail final years.

I usually never underline books. I did underline this one since I intend to keep it. Dr McCullough writes from his heart. He shares his experience as a gerontologist and as a son helping his mother in her last years. He gives us lots of suggestions and tells us what to expect when the time comes for us to do the same. One thing I miss though is a photo of his dear mom.

This is a book about a better way of caring for the elderly. It is written by a geriatric physician with a lifetime experience of caring for the elderly. It is also written by someone who knew their own medical crisis and so understands the whole process of illness from 'inside'. And it is written by someone who nursed his own mother through the stages of stability, compromise, crisis, recovery, decline, prelude to dying, death, and mourning that are carefully considered in the book. The central idea of the book is that most of those in decline in their advanced years are less well- served by a fix of high- tech fast hospital medicine than they are by slow considerate caring at home. The same kind of medicine which works best at one stage of life does not necessarily work best at another. McCullough provides a great deal of useful advice on how to deal with the numerous problems which arise in caring for an elderly person. He deals with the family and psychological problems also. This is a very much needed book which will help a lot of people. I would only say that I myself was spared much of the anguish, pain and difficulty of caring for my beloved mother when she suffered eight years of incapacity after a debilitating stroke. Here I can speak of the truly tender loving care of my devoted sister who while having very large family and work responsibilities of her own gave my mother the kind of 'slow care' spoken of in this book. She somehow knew instinctively what 'slow care' really meant and I will forever be grateful to her for that.

My Mother, Your Mother is a wise and useful guide for families finding their way through the process of aging. The author is a geriatrician who, after thirty years of caring, family-oriented practice, had to deal with his own mother's late life experience and came to realize that there were parts of it for which even he was unprepared. This book sets out the full and nuanced process of the experience he shared with his mother, but it is much more than that. It also breaks down that experience into its different stages (e.g. compromise, crisis, recovery, decline) and generalizes in a way that is useful to all of us with aging parents or even to those of us brave or practical enough to look forward to our own later lives. It advocates a careful and conservative approach to decision-making for which he coins the term "slow medicine." These prescriptive sections are written with a clipped and urgent style that sounds like a sibling older, wiser and more practical than ourselves who loves our parent as much as we do but is only in telephone contact when we need them most. This is both a great read and a Dr. Spock for families with elders.

This is a manual about aging and dying. It will be especially welcome and useful to those of us who, for the first time, are approaching the final years of our parents' lives. Many of us, parents and children alike, are not approaching this inevitable period of life with our eyes wide open, and are encountering difficult situations. This book helps. There are three specific aspects of the book I find noteworthy: 1) For each stage of the aging process the book clearly describes what to expect physically, medically, and emotionally. The stages, which the author calls "stations", are stability, compromise, crisis, recovery, decline, prelude to dying, death, and grieving/legacy. They span the time from "we're fine", through transient health crises, through loss of independent mobility and functionality, to dying. The descriptions of physical and medical expectations come from the author's career-long experience at the forefront of academic (Dartmouth Medical School) and applied (chief of gerontology at a top assisted care facility) practice. 2) There is detailed coverage of emotional and psychological issues, such as those that arise when the roles of competent parent and dependent child slowly reverse. This is important to one of the dominant threads of the book that throughout this time it is good to be thoughtful, and respectful of everyone involved. The careful and sensitive treatment of these issues is especially welcome and not necessarily what some of us expect from inside the mainstream medical community. I imagine that the author is just a Really Nice Person and has cultured his empathy through caring for himself and others. 3) The concept of "slow medicine" (think "slow food"). The author discusses the hustle and bustle of modern high-tech emergency rooms and health care in light of the fact that aging and dying is irreversible and inevitable. What is the trade-off between life extended by large medical teams and a flurry of procedures poorly understood by the geriatric patient and a slowed-down, more thoughtful and respectful dying process? "Slow medicine" may not be for you, but the other parts of this book are independently valuable. There is a lot in here, including first-person stories, clear factual descriptions, and the author's analysis and comments. My choice of opening words was purposeful; this is a manual, not just a book.