Resources to Read
We have and will continue to curate a collection of books and web sites that will be useful in your quest for more information about caregiving – caring for both your loved one, and caring for yourself. We also post a lot of informations on Twitter, LinkedIn , Facebook, and YouTube, so you might find it very informative and helpful to follow us there as well.
Books - Healthspan, Lifespan and Disease
The books listed below are some of the best and most popular books to read about increasing both our lifespan and our healthspan (quality of our health throughout our lifespan). This is equally applicable to ourselves and those that we care for. Much of what ails us is directly correlated to how we care for ourselves – exercise, avoiding high risk factors (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, drugs), what we eat (e.g., inflammatory foods) and how we eat (e.g., intermittent fasting to invoke ketosis and autophagy).
Brain Health, Dietary, Healthspan
A Healthy Brain for Life
How to Prevent Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and Memory Loss
Many people claim they would rather be diagnosed with cancer than dementia or Alzheimer’s. What they may not realize is that decreased or impaired brain function is not a foregone conclusion as we get older. Our own lifestyle choices and habits can have a significant impact–for good or ill–on our brains. And that means there’s hope.
Drawing from the latest medical research, Dr. Richard Furman helps readers understand brain health and shows them how to make three powerful lifestyle changes that can help decrease the probability of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s. He explains how eating the right foods, exercising, and sustaining an ideal weight can dramatically reduce the likelihood of developing brain disorders in the first place, and even how those habits can slow the progression of dementia in someone who has already received a diagnosis.
Brain Health, Dietary, Healthspan
Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power
How to eat for maximum brainpower and health from an expert in both neuroscience and nutrition.
Like our bodies, our brains have very specific food requirements. And in this eye-opening book from an author who is both a neuroscientist and a certified integrative nutritionist, we learn what should be on our menu.
Dr. Lisa Mosconi, whose research spans an extraordinary range of specialties including brain science, the microbiome, and nutritional genomics, notes that the dietary needs of the brain are substantially different from those of the other organs, yet few of us have any idea what they might be. Her innovative approach to cognitive health incorporates concepts that most doctors have yet to learn. Busting through advice based on pseudoscience, Dr. Mosconi provides recommendations for a complete food plan, while calling out noteworthy surprises, including why that paleo diet you are following may not be ideal, why avoiding gluten may be a terrible mistake, and how simply getting enough water can dramatically improve alertness.
Including comprehensive lists of what to eat and what to avoid, a detailed quiz that will tell you where you are on the brain health spectrum, and 24 mouth-watering brain-boosting recipes that grow out of Dr. Mosconi’s own childhood in Italy, Brain Food gives us the ultimate plan for a healthy brain. Brain Food will appeal to anyone looking to improve memory, prevent cognitive decline, eliminate brain fog, lift depression, or just sharpen their edge.
Lifespan
Lifespan
The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To
In this paradigm-shifting book from acclaimed Harvard Medical School doctor and one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people on earth, Dr. David Sinclair reveals that everything we think we know about aging is wrong, and shares the surprising, scientifically-proven methods that can help readers live younger, longer.
For decades, the medical community has looked to a variety of reasons for why we age, and the consensus is that no one dies of old age; they die of age-related diseases. That’s because aging is not a disease – it is inevitable.
But what if everything you think you know about aging is wrong?
What if aging is a disease? And that disease is curable.
In THE EVOLUTION OF AGING, Dr. David Sinclair, one of the world’s foremost authorities on genetics and aging, argues just that. He has dedicated his life’s work to chasing more than a longer lifespan – he wants to enable people to live longer, healthier, and disease-free well into our hundreds. In this book, he reveals a bold new theory of aging, one that pinpoints a root cause of aging that lies in an ancient genetic survival circuit. This genetic trick – a circuit designed to halt reproduction in order to repair damage to the genome –has enabled earth’s early microcosms to survive and evolve into more advanced organisms. But this same survival circuit is the reason we age: as genetic damage accumulates over our lifespans from UV rays, environmental toxins, and unhealthy diets, our genome is overwhelmed, causing gray hair, wrinkles, achy joints, heart issues, dementia, and, ultimately, death.
But genes aren’t our destiny; we have more control over them than we’ve been taught to believe. We can’t change our DNA, but we can harness the power of the epigenome to realize the true potential of our genes. Drawing on his cutting-edge findings at the forefront of medical research, Dr. Sinclair will provide a scientifically proven roadmap to reverse the genetic clock by activating our vitality genes, so we can live younger longer. Readers will discover how a few simple lifestyle changes – like intermittent fasting, avoiding too much animal protein, limiting sugar, avoiding x-rays, exercising with the right intensity, and even trying cold therapy – can activate our vitality genes. Dr. Sinclair ends the book with a look to the near future, exploring what the world might look like – and what will need to change – when we are all living well to 120 or more.
Dr. Sinclair takes what we have long accepted as the limits of human potential and mortality and turns them into choices. THE EVOLUTION OF AGING is destined to be the biggest book on genes, biology, and longevity of this decade.
Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s Through the Stages
How to stay strong, together―through all the stages of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s books should help everyone involved through this incredibly difficult time. That’s why Alzheimer’s Through the Stages shows you what you can do for your loved one―and yourself―every step of the way. This book’s detailed descriptions of all seven stages of the disease are both helpful and comforting.
With each section divided into three parts―what to expect, what to say, and what to do―this is one of the easiest to use Alzheimer’s books for caregivers.
Alzheimer’s Through the Stages includes:
- A COMPLETE GUIDE―Go beyond other Alzheimer’s books as you learn what’s happening and what you should do during all 7 stages of the disease.
- EASY-TO-USE ADVICE―Detailed guides and sample dialogues help you handle everything from doctor visits to mood swings―making this one of the most useful Alzheimers books.
- SELF-CARE FOR CAREGIVERS―Discover the importance of your own wellbeing and how taking care of yourself is critical to successful caregiving.
Discover one of the only Alzheimers books that let you concentrate on what matters most―caring for both your loved one and yourself.
Healthspan
Why We Get Sick
The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease and How to Fight It
2020 Foreword Indie Award Honorable Mention in the “Health” Category
A scientist reveals the groundbreaking evidence linking many major diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, to a common root cause—insulin resistance—and shares an easy, effective plan to reverse and prevent it.
We are sick. Around the world, we struggle with diseases that were once considered rare. Cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes affect millions each year; many people are also struggling with hypertension, weight gain, fatty liver, dementia, low testosterone, menstrual irregularities and infertility, and more. We treat the symptoms, not realizing that all of these diseases and disorders have something in common.
Each of them is caused or made worse by a condition known as insulin resistance. And you might have it. Odds are you do—over half of all adults in the United States are insulin resistant, with most other countries either worse or not far behind.
In Why We Get Sick, internationally renowned scientist and pathophysiology professor Benjamin Bikman explores why insulin resistance has become so prevalent and why it matters. Unless we recognize it and take steps to reverse the trend, major chronic diseases will be even more widespread. But reversing insulin resistance is possible, and Bikman offers an evidence-based plan to stop and prevent it, with helpful food lists, meal suggestions, easy exercise principles, and more. Full of surprising research and practical advice, Why We Get Sick will help you to take control of your health.
Healthspan
Growing Young
How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A smart, research-driven case for why optimism, kindness, and strong social networks will help us live to 100.
From the day her daughter was born, science journalist Marta Zaraska fretted about what she and her family were eating. She fasted, considered adopting the keto diet, and ran a half-marathon. She bought goji berries and chia seeds and ate organic food.
But then her research brought her to read countless scientific papers and to interview dozens of experts in various fields of study, including molecular biochemistry, epidemiology and neuroscience. What Marta discovered shattered her long-held beliefs about aging and longevity. A strong support network of family and friends, she learned, lowers mortality risk by about 45 percent, while exercise only lowers it by about 23 percent. Volunteering your free time lowers it by 22 percent or so, while certain health fads like turmeric haven’t been shown to help at all. These revelations led Marta Zaraska to a simple conclusion: In addition to healthy nutrition and physical activity, deepening friendships, practicing empathy and contemplating your purpose in life can improve your lifespan.
Through eleven chapters that take her around the world, from catching wild mice in the woods of central England to flower arranging with octogenarians in Japan, from laboratories to “hugging centres,” Marta embarks on an absorbing, entertaining and insightful journey to determine the habits that will have the greatest impact on our longevity.
Deeply researched and expertly reported, Growing Young will dramatically change the way you seek a longer, happier life.
Healthspan
Successful Aging
A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives
INSTANT TOP 10 BESTSELLER *New York Times *USAToday *Washington Post *LA Times
“Debunks the idea that aging inevitably brings infirmity and unhappiness and instead offers a trove of practical, evidence-based guidance for living longer and better.”
—Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive
SUCCESSFUL AGING delivers powerful insights:
• Debunking the myth that memory always declines with age
• Confirming that “health span”—not “life span”—is what matters
• Proving that sixty-plus years is a unique and newly recognized developmental stage
• Recommending that people look forward to joy, as reminiscing doesn’t promote health
Levitin looks at the science behind what we all can learn from those who age joyously, as well as how to adapt our culture to take full advantage of older people’s wisdom and experience. Throughout his exploration of what aging really means, using research from developmental neuroscience and the psychology of individual differences, Levitin reveals resilience strategies and practical, cognitive enhancing tricks everyone should do as they age.
Successful Aging inspires a powerful new approach to how readers think about our final decades, and it will revolutionize the way we plan for old age as individuals, family members, and citizens within a society where the average life expectancy continues to rise.
Healthspan
Healthy Aging
A Lifelong Guide to Your Well-Being
A unique book about aging that draws on the science of biogerontology as well as on the secrets of healthy longevity, from the renowned Dr. Andrew Weil.
In each of his widely acclaimed, best-selling books, Dr. Andrew Weil has been an authoritative and companionable guide through a uniquely effective combination of traditional and nontraditional approaches to health and healthy living. Dr. Weil explains that there are a myriad of things we can do to keep our bodies and minds in good working order through all phases of life. Hugely informative, practical, and uplifting, Healthy Aging is infused with the engaging candor and common sense that have made Dr. Weil our most trusted source on healthy living.
With detailed information on:
– Learning to eat right: Following the anti-inflammatory diet, Dr. Weil’s guide to the nutritional components of a healthy lifestyle
– Separating myth from fact about the would-be elixirs of life extension — herbs, hormones, and anti-aging “medicines”
– Learning exercise, breathing and stress-management techniques to benefit your mind and body
– Understanding the science behind the aging process
– Keeping record of your life lessons to share with loved ones
Healthy Aging features a glossary, an appendix summarizing the Anti-Inflammatory Diet and an appendix of additional resources.
Dietary, Healthspan, Alzheimer’s
The Alzheimer’s Antidote
A Comprehensive Metabolic & Lifestyle Approach
A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2016 is startlingly similar to a half-century ago. Despite decades of research and millions of dollars invested in uncovering the causes and developing treatments for this devastating illness, progress has been slow, with each new “blockbuster” drug proving to be as big a disappointment as the ones that went before it. Today, an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is a death sentence.
However, there may be ways to prevent, delay, and possibly even reverse the course of this crippling neurodegenerative disease. In The Alzheimer’s Antidote, Certified Nutrition Specialist Amy Berger presents a multi-pronged nutrition and lifestyle intervention to combat Alzheimer’s disease at its roots. Berger’s research shows that Alzheimer’s results from a fuel shortage in the brain: As neurons become unable to harness energy from glucose, they atrophy and die, leading to classic symptoms like memory loss and behavioral changes.
This is a revolutionary approach—one that has been discussed in the scientific literature for years but has only recently been given credence in clinical settings, thanks to extremely promising studies wherein Alzheimer’s patients have experienced complete reversals of the condition. Medical and scientific journals are full of research showing alternate ways to fuel the starving brain, but no one has been bringing this essential information to the people who need it most—until now.
In a culture obsessed with miracle medications, the pharmaceutical route for tackling Alzheimer’s has been a massive failure. Pills and potions don’t address underlying causes, and regarding Alzheimer’s, they typically fail to improve even the symptoms. As a metabolic problem, the only effective way to treat Alzheimer’s may be a multifaceted approach that fundamentally reprograms energy generation in the brain. The good news is, the secret is as simple as switching to a low-carb, high-fat diet.
The Alzheimer’s Antidote shows us that cognitive decline is not inevitable, but if it does occur, we don’t have to sit idly by and wait helplessly while it progresses and worsens. Amy Berger empowers loved ones and caregivers of Alzheimer’s sufferers, and offers hope and light against this otherwise unnavigable labyrinth of darkness.
Dietary, Healthspan
The Healthspan Solution: How and What to Eat to Add Life to Your Years: 100 Easy, Whole-Food Recipes
Increase your lifespan and optimize your health with plant-based recipes for a longer, more vibrant life.
Authors and leading plant-based nutrition experts Julieanna Hever and Ray Cronise have spent over a decade researching diet and nutrition, analyzing longevity studies, and helping their clients achieve sustainable, lasting health benefits by adopting a whole food, plant-based diet.
In The Healthspan Solution, they share the simple and effective diet that has allowed their clients to lose weight, reverse disease, reduce or eliminate medication use, and achieve optimal health. This accessible and easy-to-follow guide examines the health risks posed by typical Western eating habits and explains how a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices can lead to lower blood pressure, healthy weight management, and longer life.
Their flexible, customizable approach to eating challenges the conventional idea of breakfast, lunch, and dinner and focuses instead on soups, salads, sides, and sweets. With 100 delicious recipes to choose from, The Healthspan Solution make adopting a plant-based lifestyle simple and sustainable.
Evidence-based research on the scientific underpinnings of the healthspan diet. Easy-to-follow guidelines simplify food choices without being restrictive
Beautifully photographed recipes offer options and flexibility
Medical, Healthspan
Unconventional Medicine
Join the Revolution to Reinvent Healthcare, Reverse Chronic Disease, and Create a Practice You Love
The world is facing the greatest healthcare crisis it has ever seen. Chronic disease is shortening our lifespan, destroying our quality of life, bankrupting governments, and threatening the health of future generations. Sadly, conventional medicine, with its focus on managing symptoms, has failed to address this challenge. The result is burned-out physicians, a sicker population, and a broken healthcare system.
In Unconventional Medicine, Chris Kresser presents a plan to reverse this dangerous trend. He shows how the combination of a genetically aligned diet and lifestyle, functional medicine, and a lean, collaborative practice model can create a system that better serves the needs of both patients and practitioners.
The epidemic of chronic illness can be stopped, if patients and practitioners can adapt.
Medical, Alzheimer’s, Healthspan
The Inflammation Spectrum
From the international bestselling author of Ketotarian comes a revolutionary new plan to discover the foods your unique body loves, hates, and needs to feel great.
In Dr. Will Cole’s game-changing new book, readers will discover how inflammation is at the core of most common health woes. What’s more, it exists on a continuum: from mild symptoms such as weight gain and fatigue on one end, to hormone imbalance and autoimmune conditions on the other. How you feel is being influenced by every meal. Every food you eat is either feeding inflammation or fighting it. Because no one else is you, the foods that work well for someone else may not be right for your body. At heart, The Inflammation Spectrum is about learning to love your body enough to nourish it with delicious, healing foods. You’ll find insightful quizzes and empowering advice to put you on a path toward food freedom and overall healing, once and for all.
Medical, Alzheimer’s, Healthspan
INFLAMED
Discover the root cause of inflammation and personalize a step-by-step plan to create a healthy, vibrant life
Selected to SELF Magazine’s list of “7 Fascinating and Illuminating Books That Will Totally Open Your Eyes About Your Health”
Both absorbing and revelatory, INFLAMED isn’t just a story of healing (of an inflammatory, autoimmune condition). It’s a crystal clear guide that cuts through the media hype, offering an anti-inflammatory roadmap to reduce pain, calm chronic symptoms, and light a path to glowing, vibrant health.
Are you are suffering from a chronic illness but not getting the results you want from conventional care alone? Are you without a specific diagnosis, but experiencing issues like fatigue, aching joints, resistant weight loss or digestive or skin problems?
INFLAMED is your concise guide to changing your life by reducing inflammation.
A refreshing voice for readers who appreciate Western medicine, but who are searching for treatments that solve the root cause of their conditions – not just address them with a quick, pharmacological fix – Shelly Malone is the discerning expert chronic sufferers have been waiting for. Inside, readers will find:
•Exactly what inflammation means and how it manifests: pain, allergies, infertility, depression, obesity, autoimmune conditions and more
•The complete story on gluten, dairy and other food sensitivities
•The role your genes do and don’t play in disease
•What your digestive tract is trying to tell you
•Why it’s time to trade the calorie and fat gram counting for brand new eating principles
•Where inflammatory toxins hide (in your food, in your home and on your body)
•The synergistic connection between stress, sleep and hormones
•How past medical history can contribute to poor health
INFLAMED closes with a customizable, 25-step action plan the meets you where you are. Learn how to find lasting motivation and make lifestyle change less intimidating with small, specific action steps for consistent progress.
Includes access to over 20 “cheat sheets” from simple meal/snack ideas to product label guides to “lesser evils,” a chart of delicious (and realistic) food substitutions.
Find a reason – and a way – to live a healthy, vibrant life.
Medical, Survival
Radical Remission
Surviving Cancer Against All Odds
In this New York Times bestseller, Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds, Dr. Kelly A. Turner, founder of the Radical Remission Project, uncovers nine factors that can lead to a spontaneous remission from cancer—even after conventional medicine has failed!
This is really the crux of the book, and it is a fascinating, if not challenging, idea. How much self-healing power does our body have, and how is it initiated? When you first see the nine factors Dr. Turner has uncovered through her research, your first reaction might be one of circumspection. However, if you read this book, you definitely will have opened your mind to amazing possibilities beyond traditional medicine. And even though the focus is on cancer (stage 4), it is still very much a useful read for anyone dealing with a terminal disease themselves or in a loved-one.
While getting her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley, Dr. Turner, a researcher, lecturer, and counselor in integrative oncology, was shocked to discover that no one was studying episodes of radical (or unexpected) remission—when people recover against all the odds without the help of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed.
She was so fascinated by this kind of remission that she embarked on a ten-month trip around the world, traveling to ten different countries to interview fifty holistic healers and twenty radical remission cancer survivors about their healing practices and techniques. Her research continued by interviewing over 100 Radical Remission survivors and studying over 1000 of these cases. Her evidence presents nine common themes that she believes may help even terminal patients turn their lives around.
The nine factors:
- Radically changing your diet
- Taking control of your health
- Following your intuition
- Using herbs and supplements
- Releasing suppressed emotions
- Increasing positive emotions
- Embracing social support
- Deepening your spiritual connection
- Having strong reasons for living
Dementia, MCI
Living with Mild Cognitive Impairment
One in ten adults over 65 has some form of mild cognitive impairment or Mci–thinking problems that go beyond those associated with normal aging, but that fall short of the serious impairments experienced by people with Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias.
This is the first book written specifically for individuals with Mci, for their loved ones, and for the health care professionals who treat them. Written by three clinicians and researchers who have devoted their careers to Mci patients, this book provides up-to-date and reliable information on the nature of this disorder, how it may affect people, and what can be done about it.
The authors explain how Mci is diagnosed and treated and they offer advice on how to improve cognitive health through diet and exercise, through social engagement, and through the use of practical, effective memory strategies. Throughout, case studies illustrate the real-life issues facing people living with Mci. The book includes “Questions to Ask Your Doctor,” recommended readings and links to relevant websites, and worksheets to guide readers through healthy lifestyle changes.
Medical
The English Speakers Guide on Medical Care in Mexico
Whether you’re planning to travel through Mexico for pleasure or business; making plans to move to Mexico; making plans for your future retirement; a patient in need of affordable medical care, a disabled US Veteran, or an expatriate already living and working or retired (full or part-time) in Mexico, The English Speaker’s Guide to Medical Care in Mexico contains a wealth of valuable and up-to-date knowledge that will help you to understand and navigate the healthcare systems and medical culture of Mexico.
This comprehensive 256-page guide, now in its 4th edition, is a wide-ranging compendium of information, facts, contacts and local knowledge concerning healthcare matters in Mexico.
Topics include an introduction to and history of medical care in Mexico, the Mexican public health system (IMSS & Seguro Popular), private medical care, finding physicians and specialist, clinics and hospitals, dental care, pharmacies and buying medicines, healthcare costs and insurance, medical tourism, programs for US Veterans, Medicaid and Medicare, elective surgery options, vaccinations, types of insurance, retirement options including assisted living and nursing care, alternative medical treatments and more.
In addition to the thoroughly comprehensive range of healthcare topics, the book also contains a dedicated section with healthcare advice for travelers in Mexico, alerts about current disease risks in certain areas, alcoholism, procedures for complaints about the healthcare you may receive, and a section about the ‘dark side’ of healthcare in Mexico–pointing out the lesser advertised risks and cons associated with healthcare and how to separate the genuine healthcare options from the hype.
As healthcare and its costs become an increasing concern for millions of people living in developed economies, this guide explains what Mexico offers. It is an indispensable guide that shows you what healthcare options are available now, and how to access them, whether you are in Mexico on a visit, planning to live in Mexico or living there now part-time or full-time.
Medical, Multiple Sclerosis
Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis
Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis is an established and successful program of treatment. Once a diagnosis of MS meant inevitable decline and disability. Now thousands of people around the world are living healthy, active lives on the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis recovery program.
Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis explains the nature of MS and outlines an evidence-based 7 step program for recovery. Professor George Jelinek devised the program from an exhaustive analysis of medical research when he was first diagnosed with MS in 1999. It has been refined through major ongoing international clinical studies under Professor Jelinek’s leadership, examining the lifestyles of several thousand people with MS world-wide and their health outcomes.
Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis is invaluable for anyone recently diagnosed with MS, living with MS for years, or with a family member with MS. It makes an ideal resource for doctors treating people with MS.
‘I would have no hesitation in recommending Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis to my patients, but also to my friends and colleagues.’ Professor Gavin Giovannoni, MBBCh, PhD, FCP (S.A., Neurol.), FRCP, FRCPath, Chair of Neurology, Blizard Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis combines hard scientific evidence with practical advice and compassion. It will be of benefit to nearly everybody affected by MS and I heartily recommend it.’ Dr Peter Fisher FRCP , Physician to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and Director of Research, Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine.
Aging
How to Survive Life and Death – A Guide for Happiness in This World and Beyond
When you nearly die three times, you learn a thing or two about how to live…
After years as a pop illustrator and Emmy-nominated designer of children’s animation, Robert Kopecky never dreamed he’d end up writing a book about surviving three near-death experiences, but after his life magically turned around and placed him on a spiritual path of study, meditation, and service, his spiritual guides finally told him to write it all down!
Though he colorfully describes his three completely different NDEs, they led to book that’s not about what Heaven looks like, or what to expect in the hereafter (besides continued life), but how to really realize the eternal nature of life, the profound energy of Love, and the availability of “Heaven” in every moment of every life we live.
Reading this book will ameliorate yours fears surrounding your own death, and the death of your loved ones, and help you shed the weight of a lifetime of social and existential anxiety. You’ll discover Robert’s three “Tips for Happiness,” which are:
- Radical Kindness
- Radical Forgiveness
- Radical Surrender
Easy, bright, and reassuring, it’s the most fun you’ll ever have reading about death–generously mixed with great lessons for living life!
Senior Living
Being Mortal
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and Chicago Tribune, now in paperback with a new reading group guide
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.
Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients’ anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them.
In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Now he examines its ultimate limitations and failures-in his own practices as well as others’-as life draws to a close. Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life-all the way to the very end.
Senior Living
Elderhood
A New York Times bestseller
As revelatory as Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson’s Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life.
For more than 5,000 years, “old” has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we’ve made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied.
Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that’s neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy–a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself.
Elderhood is for anyone who is, in the author’s own words, “an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being.”
Medical, Alzheimer’s
The End of Alzheimer’s
The instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller — A groundbreaking plan to prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s Disease that fundamentally changes how we understand cognitive decline.
Everyone knows someone who has survived cancer, but until now no one knows anyone who has survived Alzheimer’s Disease.
In this paradigm shifting book, Dale Bredesen, MD, offers real hope to anyone looking to prevent and even reverse Alzheimer’s Disease and cognitive decline. Revealing that AD is not one condition, as it is currently treated, but three, The End of Alzheimer’s outlines 36 metabolic factors (micronutrients, hormone levels, sleep) that can trigger “downsizing” in the brain. The protocol shows us how to rebalance these factors using lifestyle modifications like taking B12, eliminating gluten, or improving oral hygiene.
The results are impressive. Of the first ten patients on the protocol, nine displayed significant improvement with 3-6 months; since then the protocol has yielded similar results with hundreds more. Now, The End of Alzheimer’s brings new hope to a broad audience of patients, caregivers, physicians, and treatment centers with a fascinating look inside the science and a complete step-by-step plan that fundamentally changes how we treat and even think about AD