Being Mortal

After hearing Dr. Atul Gawande being interviewed about his most recent book, Being Mortal, I went online to my county library catalog and reserved a copy. I picked it up just a couple of days ago.

Gawande is a first generation American physician, a surgeon, and the son of two physicians, immigrants from India.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the physical changes of aging, the place of choice in one’s quality of life, and how we (society, the medical profession, our family members and our friends) view aging.

Let me share just one tidbit.  In the chapter on physical changes of aging, Dr. Gawande addresses the issue of falls. (In fact, the New York Times had a feature article on the same topic earlier this week.) Falls in older adults are very serious.

Gawande writes:  “Each year about 350,000 Americans fall and break a hip.  Of those, 40% end up in a nursing home, and 20% are never able to walk again. The three primary risk factors for falling are poor balance, taking more than four prescription medications and muscle weakness. Elderly people without these risk factors have a 12% chance of falling in a year. Those with all three risk factors have almost a one hundred percent chance.”

Reading these facts points again to the negative side effects of “too much medicine.”  Muscle weakness occurs naturally as we age. We can slow down – not stop, but slow -- that loss of muscle mass and loss of strength by regular exercise. Walking is an excellent exercise and it also strengthens the sense of balance.

More later on this wonderful book:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

by Atul Gawande

Henry Holt and Company

New York

282 pp.