Health Affairs, 24, no. 4 (2005): 1064-1072 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.24.4.1064 © 2005 by Project HOPE	New Online   How Would Obama, McCain Cover The Uninsured?   Debating Cost Of Uninsured   Try Medicare-For-All   HA Blog Top 10

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Narrative Matters

What Are We Going To Do With Dad?

PREFACE: America is getting older, and older Americans are living longer. What has not changed is the dysfunction and illness that usually accompany aging. Geriatrician Jerald Winakur looks at the "vast inland sea of elders" that is building and wonders where the doctors will come from to care for them. Writing as the son of an eighty-six-year-old man with dementia, Winakur also details the nitty-gritty of caring for an increasingly debilitated parent. In both of his roles—loving son and highly skilled professional—he is hard pressed to alter a course that punishes his dad and tears at his family. Even as medical science extends life, the future seen through his eyes is fraught with clinical and moral quandaries.

My father is eighty-six years old. He was never a big man, except perhaps to me when I was his little boy. At most he was five feet, eight inches tall and weighed 160 pounds. Today he weighs barely 120. Maybe he is five feet two. He teeters on spindly legs, a parched blade of grass in the wind, refusing the walker his doctor recommends or the arm extended in support by those of us who love him. He doesn’t know what day it is. He sleeps most of the time, barely eats. Shaving exhausts him. His clothes hang like . . . [Full Text of this Article]

The Role Of The SNU

 

The Road To Now

 

Hospital Dangers

 

And Now We Wait

 

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