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

Gillick is one of the most competent experts on aging related issues. This book is so different from most of what has been written on this subject. It is a must read for elders, hospital and nursing home administrators, nurses, family caregivers, as well as our elected officials!

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.

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

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.

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.