How We Age

December 6, 2010
Geriatric psychiatrist Agronin (Alz-heimer Disease and Other Dementias) draws on stories of his patients to examine the gifts of wisdom and experience that come through loss. Literate, generous, and compassionate, Agronin's ground-level view of aging (most of his patients at a large Miami nursing home are nonagenarians) opposes the current spate of books attempting to turn back the clock and preserve physical youth. Rather, Agronin argues for accepting, understanding, and appreciating aging as a nonreversible, frequently debilitating, but valuable condition. He sweetens sobering accounts of human development theorist Erik Erikson's dementia; a Czech woman whose husband and children were killed by the Nazis; a Native American Korean War vet suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder; a drug- and alcohol-addicted, bipolar millionaire, and others with instances in which they were able to find meaning and comfort through new challenges and the creative interplay of memory and imagination involved in life review. Throughout, Agronin is critical of impersonal "standard of care" even in seemingly hopeless situations. Referencing poetry, plays and parables, he makes an art of caring for the aged by restoring dignity to a dehumanized but growing segment of the population.