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

Dennis McCullough (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2008

What's the right thing to do for mom and dad as they get older?

Thanks to advances in science and medicine, more of our parents are living longer than ever before. And though we are rewarded with more time with the people we love, we are also faced with new sets of complications—more diseases, more disability, more need for support and careful judgments. Yet while our health care system may help people live to an older age, it doesn't perform so well when decline eventually sets in. We want to do the best thing but are overwhelmed with the staggering choices we face.

Geriatrician Dennis McCullough has spent his life helping families to cope with their parents' aging and eventual final passage, experiences he faced with his own mother. In this comforting and much-needed book, he recommends a new approach, which he terms "Slow Medicine."

Shaped by common sense and kindness, grounded in traditional medicine yet receptive to alternative therapies, Slow Medicine advocates for careful anticipatory "attending" to an elder's changing needs rather than waiting for crises that force acute medical interventions—an approach that improves the quality of elders' extended late lives without bankrupting their families financially or emotionally. As Dr. McCullough argues, we need to learn that time and kindness are sometimes more important and humane at these late stages than state-of-the-art medical interventions.

My Mother, Your Mother will help you learn how to:

—form an early and strong partnership with your parents and siblings;
—strategize on connecting with doctors and other care providers;
—navigate medical crises;
—create a committed Advocacy Team;
—reach out with greater empathy and awareness; and
—face the end-of-life time with confidence and skill.

Although taking care of those who have always cared for us is not an easily navigated time of life, My Mother, Your Mother will help you and your family to prepare for this complex journey. This is not a plan for getting ready to die; it is a plan for understanding, for caring, and for helping those you love live well during their final years. And the time to start is now.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“McCullough’s concept of ‘slow medicine’ is an example of that ethic of care in action…recommended for public libraries.” (Library Journal )

“Appreciation of...My Mother, Your Mother...will, I think, depend on where you are on life’s highway. If...your parents are still living, this geriatrician’s guide to stepping in as escort, caregiver and advocate for your parent’s final journey will probably be comforting in its compassion and detail.” (St. Petersburg Times )

“A valuable book, chilling and comforting in equal measure. A similar book directed at fast doctors, fast hospital administrators and fast insurers might be the next welcome stride backward down the path.” (New York Times )

“As valuable a resource as any I’ve found.” (Jane Gross, New York Times )

“Full of advice on how to get involved in [your parents’] care, and the kind of conversations you should have with their doctors. It’s also a warning about the medical profession’s alarming tendency toward ‘poly-pharmacy.’” (Maclean's )

About the Author

Dennis McCullough, M.D., has been a family physician and geriatrician for thirty years. He is the co-author of The Little Black Book of Geriatrics, and he lives with his wife, the poet Pamela Harrison, in Norwich, Vermont.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061243027
• ISBN-13: 978-0061243028
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ....a solid and welcome resource, February 10, 2008

By 

C. J. Nye (Fairbanks, Alaska) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing "Slow Medicine," the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones (Hardcover)

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.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a wise and useful guide, February 18, 2008

By 

Matthew Hall (Jackson, WY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing "Slow Medicine," the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones (Hardcover)

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.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars bound to become a classic, March 18, 2008

By 

Free Press Advocate "barbara dimmick" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing "Slow Medicine," the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones (Hardcover)

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.