Customer Reviews

Multiple Sclerosis: A Personal Exploration (Human Horizons)

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Granted, the book is written in excellent conversational style. However, I am recently diagnosed with MS, and I found the book to be both outdated and not applicable to life in the US. There is a strong British orientation to the book. Americans in the 2000's will find that many of the issues are no longer relevant, such as a discussion about why it is wrong for doctors to just inform the well spouse about the disease and keep the patient in the dark, for his own good. That is unthinkable today, so therefore not worth reading about.

Burnfield has updated the book since the original publishing. However, the updates are not well integrated into the text. They show up as additional sections at the end of chapters, such as sections on the ABC drugs and Viagra. It is obvious that a not a great deal of effort has gone into the updates.

Again, it was very well written, but there are many better books available for people being diagnosed in the United States in recent years.

I haven't read any other books on MS and don't have the disease, but I am guessing this book might be of significant help and comfort to someone who is diagnosed with MS or living with someone with MS. It's very well-written in a conversational tone by a British doctor/psychiatrist who has MS himself. It's a nice cross between straight medical info, personal anecdotes, and wholistic self-help suggestions. I recommend it highly.