impact of early life habits Fothergill, J. M. (1885). The diseases of sedentary and advanced life: a work for medical and lay readers. New York, NY: D. Appleton & Co.
multimorbidity Maclachlan, D. (1863). A practical treatise on the diseases and infirmities of advanced age. London, UK: John Churchill & Sons.
“the mother of British geriatrics” Kong, T. K. (2000). Marjory Warren: the mother of geriatrics. Journal of the Hong Kong Geriatrics Society. 10(2), 102–105.
physical rehabilitation of the sick elderly Matthews, D. A. (1984). Dr. Marjory Warren and the origin of British geriatrics. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 32(4), 253–258.
radically different in function Nevins, M. (2012). Chapter 9. More meanderings in medical history. (122). Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.
“so-called ‘incurable’ cases” Warren, M. W. (1943). Care of chronic sick. British Medical Journal. 2(4329), 822–823; Warren, M. W. (1946). Care of the chronic aged sick. Lancet. (247)6406, 841–843.
approaches currently touted as innovative or transformational Both who is doing the work and who is most likely to benefit from it have now, as they always have, a lot to do with money and power. See Friend, T. (2017). Silicon valley’s quest to live forever. New Yorker.
“not cooperating” Span, P. (July 21, 2017). Another possible indignity of age: arrest. New York Times.
taking care of older patients is the only necessary qualification Diachun, L., Van Bussel, L., Hansen, K. T., Charise, A., & Rieder, M. J. (2010). “But I see old people everywhere”: dispelling the myth that eldercare is learned in nongeriatric clerkships. Academic Medicine. 85(7), 1221–1228.
many police departments … increasingly recognize the unintended harms Brown, R. T., Ahalt, C., Steinman, M. A., Kruger, K., & Williams, B. A. (2014). Police on the front line of community geriatric healthcare: challenges and opportunities. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 62(11), 2191–2198; Brown, R. T., Ahalt, C., Rivera, J., Cenzer, I. S., Wilhelm, A., & Williams, B. A. (2017). Good cop, better cop: evaluation of a geriatrics training program for police. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 65(8), 1842–1847.
4. Child
Houses
would be called ethnic literature Gilman, S. L. (1998) Introduction: ethnicity-ethnicities-literature-literatures. PMLA. 113(1), 19–27; Le, N. (2006). Love and honour and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Zoetrope: All Story. 10(2); Lee, K. (February 23, 2012). Should we still be using the term “ethnic literature”? Huffington Post.
a better job when treating bodies Macapagal, K., Bhatia, R., & Greene, G. J. (2016). Differences in healthcare access, use, and experiences within a community sample of racially diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning emerging adults. LGBT Health. 3(6), 434–442; Rahman, M., Li, D. H., & Moskowitz, D. A. (2018). Comparing the healthcare utilization and engagement in a sample of transgender and cisgender bisexual+ persons. Archives of Sexual Behavior.
bestselling medical novel Shem, S. (2010). The house of God. New York, NY: Berkley Books.
Resurrection
“prescribing cascade” Rochon, P. A., & Gurwitz, J. H. (1997). Optimising drug treatment for elderly people: the prescribing cascade. British Medical Journal. 315, 1096–1099.
Confusion
“barely noticeable until everything around has disappeared” Bayley, J. (1999). Chapter 7. Elegy for iris. (115). New York, NY: Picador.
“against invisible threats” Ernaux, A. (1987). A woman’s story. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press. (71–72).
Americans fear dementia (September 12, 2017) Why are we so afraid of dementia? Conversation.
only about half the people with dementia have been diagnosed Bradford, A., Kunik, M. E., Schulz, P., William, S. P., & Singh, H. (2009). Missed and delayed diagnosis of dementia in primary care: Prevalence and contributing factors. Alzheimer’s Disease and Associated Disorders. 23(4), 306–314.
significant variability among ethnic group subtypes Mayeda, E. R., Glymour, M. M., Quesenberry, C. P., & Whitmer, R. A. (2016). Inequalities in dementia incidence between six racial and ethnic groups over fourteen years. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association 12(3), 216–224.
doctors frequently miss the diagnosis of dementia Valcour, V. G., Masaki, K. H., Curb, J. D., & Blanchette, P. L. (2000). The detection of dementia in the primary care setting. Archives of Internal Medicine. 160(19), 2964–2968; Callahan, C. M., Hendrie, H. C., & Tierney, W. M. (1995). Documentation and evaluation of cognitive impairment in elderly primary care patients. Annals of Internal Medicine. 122(6), 422–429; Lin, J. S., O’Connor, E., Rossom, R. C., Perdue, L. A., Eckstrom, E. (2013). Screening for cognitive impairment in older adults: a systematic review for the U.S. preventive services task force. Annals of Internal Medicine. 159(9), 601–612.
3 percent of patients over age sixty-five were documented in 2018 as having some kind of cognitive impairment Park, A. (March 24, 2015). Many doctors don’t tell patients they have Alzheimer’s. Time; Alzheimer’s Association. (2015). 2015 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. Alzheimer’s and Dementia. 11(3), 332–384.
Standards
“I would have to watch this torture” Gabow, P. (2015). The fall: aligning the best care with standards of care at the end of life. Health Affairs. 34(5), 871–874.
treats diseases rather than attending to illness Kleinman, A. (1988). Illness narratives. New York, NY: Basic Books.
cause significant suffering Jecker, N. S. (2017). Doing what we shouldn’t: medical futility and moral distress. American Journal of Bioethics. 17(2), 41–43; Derse, A. R. (2017). “Erring on the side of life” is sometimes an error: physicians have the primary responsibility to correct this. American Journal of Bioethics. 17(2), 39–41.
Other
“a list of the things that were wrong” Gross, T., & Brown, M. M. (August 4, 2017). Poet imagines life inside a 1910 building that eugenics built. Fresh Air: NPR. 31:18—31:44, 32:15–33:48, 34:01–34:06.
“shared meaning and coherence” Cole, T. (1992). The journey of life: a cultural history of aging in America. (230). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
“less than” compared with youth Haraven, T. K. (1976). The last stage: historical adulthood and old age. American Civilization: New Perspectives. 105(4), 13–27.
5. Tween
Normal
history of Western medicine Much of what I cite as history in this book is in fact merely the history of Europe and the North American continent. Written in English, that literature is more accessible to me, and because the book’s focus is the United States, it’s often also most relevant to American beliefs and institutions.
more soldiers if fewer children died Brosco, J. P. (2012). Navigating the future through the past: the enduring historical legacy of federal children’s health programs in the United States. American Journal of Public Health. 102(10), 1849–1857.
entirely absent from current AAMC surveys Association of American Medical Colleges. (2018). Medical school graduation questionnaire.
“hidden curriculum” Hafferty, F. W. (1998). Beyond curriculum reform: confronting medicine’s hidden curriculum. Academic Medicine. 73(4), 403–407.
taken-for-granted aspects in the clinical setting Esteghamati, A., Baradaran, H., Monajemi, A., Khankeh, H. R., & Geranmayeh, M. (2016). Core components of clinical education: a qualitative study with attending physicians and their residents. Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism. 4(2), 64–71.
the maroon 1987 edition Bickley, L. S. (2003). Bates’ guide to physical examination and history taking. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Different
“on the road to eliminating them” Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
“because they are old” Butler, R. N. (1975). Why survive?: Being old in America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
“time preceding dea
th” Butler, R. N. (1975). Why survive?: Being old in America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
“older people as different” Butler, R. N. (1975). Why survive?: Being old in America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
“the child of ignorance” Hazlitt, W. On prejudice. In Sketches and essays. London, UK: Richards.
“frailty and error” Voltaire. (1984). Tolerance. In T. Besterman (Ed.), Philosophical dictionary. London, UK: Penguin Classics.
“resistant to all evidence” Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
6. Teen
Evolution
Similar sentiments Goldman, D. P., Chen, C., Zissimopoulos, J., Rowe, J. W., & the Research Network on an Aging Society. (2018). Opinion: measuring how countries adapt to societal aging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 115(3), 435–437.
didn’t expect to grow old Thane, P. (2003). Social histories of old age and aging. Journal of Social History. 37(1), 93–111.
“divine and ancestral sources” Falkner, T. M., & De Luce, J. (Eds.). Homeric heroism, older age and the end of the Odyssey in Old age in Greek and Latin literature (25). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
one-line short story Davis, L. (July 10, 2017). Fear of ageing. New York Tyrant.
Perversions
more harm than good Finlayson, E. (2015). Surgery in the elderly: aligning patient goals with expected outcomes. [PowerPoint slides]; Suskind, A., Jin, C., Cooperberg, M. R., Finlayson, E., Boscardin, W. J., Sen, S., & Walter, L. C. (2016). Preoperative frailty is associated with discharge to skilled or assisted living facilities after urologic procedures of varying complexity. Urology. 97, 25–32.
Rejuvenation
They offer the hope Featherstone, M., & Hepworth, M. (1995). Images of positive aging: a case study of Retirement Choice magazine. In M. Featherstone, & A. Wernick (Eds.) Images of aging: cultural representations of later life. (29–48). London, UK: Routledge.
“geroscience hypothesis” Austad, S. (2016). The geroscience hypothesis: is it possible to change the rate of aging? In F. Sierra, & R. Kohanski (Eds.). Advances in Geroscience. (1–36). Bethesda, MD: Springer International Publishing.
interrupting the aging process Cristofalo, V. J., Gerhard, G. S., & Pignolo, R. J. (1994). Molecular biology of aging. Surgical Clinics of North America. 74(1), 1–21; Pignolo, R. J. (n.d.). The biology of aging: an overview. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://www.med.upenn.edu/gec/user_documents/Pignolo-BiologyofAging2012GGRFINAL.pdf.
lived to 120 years old Herodotus. (1920). Book III in A. D. Godley (Ed.) The Histories. (23). Cambridge, UK: Harvard University Press.
hormone injections popular Gruman, G. J. (1961). The rise and fall of prolongevity hygiene, 1558–1873. Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 35, 221–225.
caloric restriction Weindruch, R., & Sohal, R. S. (1997). Caloric intake and aging. New England Journal of Medicine. 337(14), 986–994.
positive hormonal changes Roth, G. S., Mattison, J. A., Ottinger, M. A., Chachich, M. E., Lane, M. A., & Ingram, D. K. (2004). Aging in rhesus monkeys: relevance to human health interventions. Science. 305(5689), 1423–1426.
resveratrol … activates sirtuins Baur, J. A., Pearson, K. J., Price, N. L., Jamieson, H. A., Lerin, C., Kalra, A., et al. (2006). Resveratrol improves health and survival of mice on a high-calorie diet. Nature. 444(7117), 337–342.
“looking for drug targets” Buck Institute for Research on Aging. (September 5, 2017). Ketogenic diet improves healthspan and memory in aging mice. Eurekalert!
“senolytics” Kirland, J. L., Tchkonia, T., Zhu, Y., Niedernhofer, L. J., & Robbins, P. D. (2017). The clinical potential of senolytic drugs. Journal of American Geriatrics Society. 65(10), 2297–2301.
certain aging-associated markers Baker, D. J., Wijshake, T., Tchkonia, T., LeBrasseur, N. K., Childs, B. G., van de Sluis, B., et al. (2011). Clearance of p16Ink4a—positive senescent cells delays ageing-associated disorders. Nature. 479(7372), 232–236.
prolong life in flies Bitto, A., Ito, T. K., Pineda, V. V., LeTexier, N. J., Huang, H. Z., Sutlief, E., et al. (2016). Transient rapamycin treatment can increase lifespan and healthspan in middle-aged mice. eLife. 5, 16351; Bjedov, I., Toivonen, J. M., Kerr, F., Slack, C., Jacobson, J., Foley, A., & Partridge, L. (2010). Mechanisms of life span extension by rapamycin in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Cell Metabolism. 11(1), 35–46; Blagosklonny, M. V. (2013). Rapamycin extends life- and health span because it slows aging. Aging (Albany NY). 5(8), 592–598; Ehningher, D., Neff, F., & Xie, K. (2014). Longevity, aging, and rapamycin. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. 71(22), 4325–4346.
Stem cells Barber, G. (March 27, 2018). The Science behind the pursuit of youth. Wired.
use of hormones Perls, T. T., Reisman, N. R., & Olshansky, S. J. (2005). Provision or distribution of growth hormone for “antiaging”: clinical and legal issues. JAMA. 294(16), 2086–2090.
finitude of cell divisions Hayflick, L., and Moorhead, P. S. (1961). “The serial cultivation of human diploid cell strains.” Experimental Cell Research 25:585–621.
“they may be harmful” Olshansky, S. J., Hayflick, L., & Carnes, B. A. (2002). Position statement on human aging. Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences. 57(8), B292–297.
Gaps
top four drugs O’Connor, A. (November 23, 2011). Four drugs cause most hospitalizations in older adults. New York Times.
There were no requirements to include them National Institutes of Health (May 25, 2018). Inclusion Across the Lifespan—Policy Implementation.
what happens in the real world Hughes, L. D., McMurdo, M. E., & Guthrie, B. (2013). Guidelines for people not for diseases: the challenges of applying UK clinical guidelines to people with multimorbidity. Age Ageing. 42(1), 62–69.
conditions that commonly coexist Boyd, C. M., Darer, J., Boult, C., Fried, L. P., Boult, L., & Wu, A. W. (2005). Clinical practice guidelines and quality of care for older patients with multiple comorbid diseases: implications for pay for performance. JAMA. 294(6), 716–724.
The exclusion of old people from studies Shenoy, P., & Harugeri, A. (2015). Elderly patients’ participation in clinical trials. Perspectives in Clinical Research. 6(4), 184–198.
a disease of old people Brauer, C. A., Coca-Perraillon, M., Cutler, D. M., & Rosen, A. B. (2009). Incidence and mortality of hip fractures in the United States. JAMA. 302(14), 1573–1579.
Cochrane Library Database McCarvey, C., Coughlan, T., & O’Neill, D. (2017). Ageism in studies on the management of osteoporosis. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 65(7), 1566–1568.
cancer screening Walter, L. C., & Covinsky, K. E. (2001). Cancer screening in elderly patients: a framework for individualized decision making. JAMA. 285(21), 2750–2756.
to surgery Suskind, A. M., Zhao, S., Walter, L. C., Boscardin, W. J., & Finlayson, E. (2018). Mortality and functional outcomes after minor urological surgery in nursing home residents: a national study. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 66(5), 909–915.
homebound old people American Academy of Home Care Physicians. (n.d.). The case for home care medicine: access, quality, cost.
cost of one emergency visit Ornstein, K., Wajnberg, A., Wajnberg, A., Kaye-Kauderer, H., Winkel, G., DeCherrie, L., et al. (2013). Reduction in symptoms for homebound patients receiving home-based primary and palliative care. Journal of Palliative Medicine. 16(9), 1048–1054; Totten, A. M., White-Chu, E. F., Wasson, N., Morgan, E., Kansagara, D., Davis-O’Reilly, C., & Goodlin, S. (2016). Home-based primary care interventions. Comparative Effectiveness Reviews, No. 164.
Adulthood
“well-meaning and competent” Mount, B. M. (1976). The problem of caring for the dying in a general hospital; the palliative care unit as a possible solution. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 115.
7. Young Adult
Modern
/> little interest to most doctors Vaughan, C. P., Fowler, R., Goodman, R. A., Graves, T. R., Flacker, J. M., & Johnson, T. M. (2014). Identifying landmark articles for advancing the practice of geriatrics. Journal of American Geriatrics Society. 62(11), 2159–6162.
languishing in a no-man’s-land Friedman, S. M., Shah, K., & Hall, W. J. (2015). Failing to focus on healthy aging: a frailty of our discipline? Journal of American Geriatrics Society. 63(7), 1459–1562.
paucity of geriatrics-trained nurses Morley, J. E. A brief history of geriatrics. Journals of Gerontology. Series A Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 2004;59:1132–1152.
“unmet need among the elderly” Bynum, W. F., & Porter, R. (Eds.). (1993). Companion encyclopedia of the history of medicine. (1107). New York, NY: Routledge.
not supporting big health means not getting reelected Rosenthal, E. (2017). An American sickness: how healthcare became big business and how you can take it back. New York: Penguin Press.
Mistakes
doctors who apologize Robbennolt, J. K. (2009). Apologies and medical error. Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research. 467(2), 376–382.
normal is defined as Peterson, M., & Rose, C. L. (1982). Historical antecedents of normative vs. pathological perspectives in aging. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 30(4), 289–294.
“the fevers of old men are less acute” Gunnarsson, B. L. (2011). Languages of science in the eighteenth century. Berlin, DE: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. (273).
increased vulnerability to disease Ritch, A. (2012). History of geriatric medicine: from Hippocrates to Marjory Warren. Journal for the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 42(4), 368–374.
several diseases simultaneously Banerjee, S. (2014). Multimorbidity-older adults need health care that can count past one. Lancet. 385(9968), 587–589; Wolff, J. L., Starfield, B, & Anderson, G. (2002). Prevalence, expenditures, and complications of multiple chronic conditions in the elderly. Archives of Internal Medicine. 162(20), 2269–2276.
“special characteristics” Charcot, J. M. (1881). Clinical lectures on the diseases of old age. New York, NY: William Wood & Co.; Charcot, J. M. (1889). Clinical lectures on diseases of the nervous system. London, UK: The New Sydenham Society.
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