Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:56:11.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore: Reforming Health Care for the Last Years of Life, by Joanne Lynn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2006

CHERYL COX MACPHERSON
Affiliation:
St. George's University School of Medicine, St. George's, Grenada

Extract

Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore: Reforming Health Care for the Last Years of Life, by Joanne Lynn. Berkeley: University of California Press and New York: Milbank Memorial Fund, 2004. 217 pp. $24.95.

According to Joanne Lynn, the author of Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore: Reforming Health Care for the Last Years of Life, those of us spared an accidental or traumatic death will experience one of three trajectories of health and decline toward the end of our lives. People experiencing the first trajectory will remain active and comfortable until only a few weeks prior to death, when a severely debilitating decline will occur. Those experiencing the second will live for years with relatively minor debilitations associated with chronic illness, but these will be exacerbated at intervals over time, and death will occur unexpectedly. Those experiencing the third trajectory—nearly half of all Americans—will dwindle away slowly, becoming increasingly incapacitated from frailty and/or dementia over years or even decades.Readers are invited to contact Greg S. Loeben in writing at Midwestern University, Glendale Campus, Bioethics Program, 19555 N. 59th Ave., Glendale, AZ 85308 ([email protected]) regarding books they would like to see reviewed or books they are interested in reviewing.

Type
CQ Review
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)