Elderhood

Louise Aronson was a practicing physician who worked primarily with older patients before becoming a social critic. Now she focuses on ageism in our medical institutions and well as society in general. Her book, Elderhood, is a penetrating analysis of what it means to be older in the US and a critique of the anti-aging culture we live in. Her book is filled with her own observations and stories that show the reader what needs to change in our culture and institutions. Her model of the three stages of life—childhood, adulthood, and elderhood intrigued me.

Professor-physician-writer Louise Aronson’s Elderhood is a powerful study of aging in the United States. The book argues passionately and convincingly for the necessity of integrating medical science and care for individuals of all ages, and especially those closer to the end of life. This impressive volume moves seamlessly among memoir, critique, the history and current state of medicine and medical practice, literature, popular culture, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, highlighting the importance of respecting and being inspired by individuals of all ages, as seeing old age as far more than bodily decline.