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

Dennis McCullough (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 27, 2009

Thanks to advances in science and medicine, our parents are living longer than ever before. But our health-care system doesn't perform as well when decline eventually sets in. We want to do our best as our loved ones face new complications—more diseases and disabilities—demanding further need for support and careful judgment, but the choices we have to make can seem overwhelming.

Family doctor and geriatrician Dennis McCullough recommends a new approach: Slow Medicine. Shaped by common sense and kindness, it advocates for careful anticipatory "attending" to an elder's changing needs rather than waiting for crises that force acute medical interventions—thereby improving the quality of elders' extended late lives without bankrupting their families financially or emotionally. This is not a plan for preparing for death; it is a plan for understanding, for caring, and for helping those you love live well during their final years.

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 )

“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 )

“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 )

“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 )

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

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1 Reprint edition (January 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780061243035
• ISBN-13: 978-0061243035
• ASIN: 0061243035
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Aging > Medical Conditions & Diseases
  • #38 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Aging Parents
  • #44 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Gerontology

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 73 people found the following review helpful

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

By C. J. Nye

Format: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.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful

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

By Matt

Format: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.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

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

By Free Press Advocate

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.