Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The premise of this book was very interesting - the overmedicalization of America, especially in the elderly, and the need to see if treatments really work before putting people through them and asking society to pay for them.
However, it was dry as dust. I normally like this kind of study, but reading it felt like it feels to stay up late drinking wine and then you have to get up early the next morning, and you keep hitting the snooze button over and over. It just wasn't happening for me. I ended up skimming the chapters, hoping the book would "warm up" as it proceeded, but didn't happen. I ended up skimming the whole book.
From what I got, the author feels like you're going to get old and frail and sick no matter what you do, and when your time comes, that's it. No matter what. So our country might as well quit spending money for excessive medical treatment of the elderly, and the elderly should forget about weight loss, exercise, popping your vitamins or eating your spinach, because you're gonna get old and sick regardless. Kind of a calvinistic approach to aging. (A friend of mine, who is a presbyterian calvinist, said that your time to die is predestined, and if you improve your health so you don't die of natural causes when the time comes, you'll get hit by a truck!) I guess if that's what you believe, fine, and I do agree that many of the medical interventions we use are excessive. BUT - I also feel very strongly that lifestyle changes (not smoking, vegetarian/vegan natural foods diet, and vigorous exercise)(and NOT following the bad example set by me of staying up late to drink wine, lol) can make a huge difference in not only the span of your life but in your health, happiness, and ability to avoid painful medical treatments even if you die early under the wheels of the truck mentioned above. I'm closing in on 50, and plan to prove this by my life over the next 55 years.
So anyway, these smart scientist types like this author should shell out a few bucks, lure some English literatue PhD away from the unemployment line, and hire the English major to help make the science a little more lively and interesting...or at least throw in some gratuitous sex and violence, to keep the reader's attention and make his points more clear.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Rethinking Aging: Growing Old and Living Well in an Overtreated Society
For those fortunate enough to reside in the developed world, death before reaching a ripe old age is a tragedy, not a fact of life. Although aging and dying are not diseases, older Americans are subject to the most egregious marketing in the name of "successful aging" and "long life," as if both are commodities. In Rethinking Aging, Nortin M. Hadler examines health-care choices offered to aging Americans and argues that too often the choices serve to profit the provider rather than benefit the recipient, leading to the medicalization of everyday ailments and blatant overtreatment. Rethinking Aging forewarns and arms readers with evidence-based insights that facilitate health-promoting decision making.Over the past decade, Hadler has established himself as a leading voice among those who approach the menu of health-care choices with informed skepticism. Only the rigorous demonstration of efficacy is adequate reassurance of a treatment's value, he argues; if it cannot be shown that a particular treatment will benefit the patient, one should proceed with caution. In Rethinking Aging, Hadler offers a doctor's perspective on the medical literature as well as his long clinical experience to help readers assess their health-care options and make informed medical choices in the last decades of life. The challenges of aging and dying, he eloquently assures us, can be faced with sophistication, confidence, and grace.
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