Book Review - "My Mother, Your Mother"

'My Mother, Your Mother' speaks to many baby boomers who find themselves caring for their parents

Date published: 4/27/2008

THIS BOOK will literal- ly speak volumes to many baby boomers who find themselves helping aging parents through their late-life journey. Geriatrician Dr. Dennis McCullough recommends a new approach to elder care, "Slow Medicine," and his thoughtful observations bring a glimmer of hope to an often bleak scenario.

He focuses on the fastest growing group of elders, those over 80, and notes that there is a "looming tsunami of elder care needs."

McCullough laments the fast, often aggressive pace of American medicine, and points out the incongruity of a diagnosis-based, cure-focused approach to someone who is dying simply because they are old and at the end of their life. He points out the difference between disease and illness. He questions the unlimited use of tests and procedures for elders, and advocates a gentle approach that assesses the patient's mental state, remaining abilities, family situation and quality of life.

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Shortage in Senior Housing

By Patricia Breakey - Delhi News Bureau

A crisis is looming in housing for the rising population of senior citizens, with a shortage of beds available for those who are no longer able to live alone but don't require nursing-home care.
Adult foster care homes can be a perfect solution for people who need temporary or long-term non-medical residential care, but there aren't enough of them to meet the growing demand, Susan Aikens, Delaware County deputy commissioner, said Tuesday.

"We are actively recruiting for adult foster care homes," Aikens said. "Right now, we have five homes with 26 beds in Delaware County and we get 4 to 5 requests a month."
Recent closures of adult homes in Delaware County, both voluntary and involuntary, left about 100 people without a home. Of those, only 16 were able to remain in the county because there were no other spaces available.

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As Population Grows Older, Geriatricians Grow Scarce

Officials, Schools Prod Doctors to Focus on Elderly Care

Mary Boland, 91, can consider herself fortunate. In 2006, the chronically ill former teacher from Cincinnati had a narrow brush with death when she came down with pneumonia. Within minutes, Boland's personal physician, Gregg Warshaw, was called.

"She was weak, confused and breathing abnormally," Warshaw recalls. "Her blood oxygen level was low, and she was suffering a low-grade fever."
In the elderly, pneumonia is often fatal. But instead of rushing Boland to the nearest hospital, as many family doctors might have done, Warshaw, a geriatrician, stabilized the condition and put his patient on antibiotics.

"Luckily, the pneumonia wasn't grave enough to warrant hospitalization," Warshaw says.
Geriatricians have provided specialized care to the elderly for decades, and until recently their numbers have been growing. But despite countless attempts to convince the medical profession and the public of their worth, the number of practicing geriatricians in the United States -- about 7,000 -- is falling seriously behind needed levels.

While the U.S. population age 55 and older is growing rapidly, according to a 2005 census report, the number of medical school grads going into geriatrics has been slow to keep up.

According to one estimate, the nation's teaching hospitals are producing one or two geriatricians for every nine cardiologists or orthopedic surgeons.

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