Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

In 1913, Mabel Nassau: M. L. Nassau, Old Age Poverty in Greenwich Village: A Neighborhood Study (Fleming H. Revell Co., 1915).

 

Unless family could take such people in: M. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse (Basic Books, 1986); M. Holstein and T. R. Cole, “The Evolution of Long-Term Care in America,” in The Future of Long-Term Care, ed. R. H. Binstock, L. E. Cluff, and O. Von Mering (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

 

A 1912 report: Illinois State Charities Commission, Second Annual Report of the State Charities Commission, 1912, pp. 457–508; Virginia State Board of Charities and Corrections, First Annual Report of State Board of Charities and Corrections, 1909.

 

Nothing provoked greater terror: Haber and Gratton, Old Age and the Search for Security.

 

the case of Harry Truman: M. Barber, “Crotchety Harry Truman Remains an Icon of the Eruption,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 11, 2000; S. Rosen, Truman of Mt. St. Helens: The Man and His Mountain (Madrona Publishers, 1981). Two bands have put out songs inspired by Truman: R. W. Stone’s 1980 country rock hit, “Harry Truman, Your Spirit Still Lives On,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGwa3N43GB4, and Headgear’s 2007 indie rock single, “Harry Truman,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvcZnKkM_DE.

 

In the middle part of the twentieth century: L. Thomas, The Youngest Science (Viking, 1983).

 

Congress passed the Hill-Burton Act: A. P. Chung, M. Gaynor, and S. Richards-Shubik, “Subsidies and Structure: The Last Impact of the Hill-Burton Program on the Hospital Industry,” National Bureau of Economics Research Program on Health Economics meeting paper, April 2013, http://www.nber.org/confer/2013/HEs13/summary.htm.

 

Meanwhile, policy planners: A key source for the history of nursing homes was B. Vladeck, Unloving Care: The Nursing Home Tragedy (Basic Books, 1980). See also Holstein and Cole, “Evolution of Long-Term Care,” and records from the City of Boston and its almshouse: https://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Guide%20to%20the%20Almshouse%20records_tcm3-30021.pdf.

 

As one scholar put it: Vladeck, Unloving Care.

 

The sociologist Erving Goffman: E. Goffman Asylums (Anchor, 1961). Corroborated by C. W. Lidz, L. Fischer, and R. M. Arnold, The Erosion of Autonomy in Long-Term Care (Oxford University Press, 1992).

 

 

 

4: ASSISTANCE

 

Your chances of avoiding the nursing home: G. Spitze and J. Logan, “Sons, Daughters, and Intergenerational Social Support,” Journal of Marriage and Family 52 (1990): 420–30.

 

“Her vision was simple”: K. B. Wilson, “Historical Evolution of Assisted Living in the United States, 1979 to the Present,” Gerontologist 47, special issue 3 (2007): 8–22.

 

In 1988, the findings were made public: K. B. Wilson, R. C. Ladd, and M. Saslow, “Community Based Care in an Institution: New Approaches and Definitions of Long Term Care” paper presented at the 41st Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, San Francisco, Nov. 1988. Cited in Wilson, “Historical Evolution.”

 

In 1943, the psychologist Abraham Maslow: A. H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review 50 (1943): 370–96.

 

Studies find that as people grow older: D. Field and M. Minkler, “Continuity and Change in Social Support between Young-Old, Old-Old, and Very-Old adults,” Journal of Gerontology 43 (1988): 100–6; K. Fingerman and M. Perlmutter, “Future Time Perspective and Life Events across Adulthood,” Journal of General Psychology 122 (1995): 95–111.

 

In one of her most influential studies: L. L. Carstensen et al., “Emotional Experience Improves with Age: Evidence Based on over 10 Years of Experience Sampling,” Psychology and Aging 26 (2011): 21–33.

 

She produced a series of experiments: L. L. Carstensen and B. L. Fredrickson, “Influence of HIV Status on Cognitive Representation of Others,” Health Psychology 17 (1998): 494–503; H. H. Fung, L. L. Carstensen, and A. Lutz, “Influence of Time on Social Preferences: Implications for Life-Span Development,” Psychology and Aging 14 (1999): 595; B. L. Fredrickson and L. L. Carstensen, “Choosing Social Partners: How Old Age and Anticipated Endings Make People More Selective,” Psychology and Aging 5 (1990): 335; H. H. Fung and L. L. Carstensen, “Goals Change When Life’s Fragility Is Primed: Lessons Learned from Older Adults, the September 11 Attacks, and SARS,” Social Cognition 24 (2006): 248–78.

 

By 2010, the number of people in assisted living: Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Nursing Home Data Compendium, 2012 Edition (Government Printing Office, 2012).

 

A survey of fifteen hundred assisted living facilities: C. Hawes et al., “A National Survey of Assisted Living Facilities,” Gerontologist 43 (2003): 875–82.

 

 

 

5: A BETTER LIFE

 

In a book he wrote: W. Thomas, A Life Worth Living (Vanderwyk and Burnham, 1996).

 

Gawande, Atul's books