Memory Lessons
By Jerald Winakur

A Doctor to the Oldest of the Old Talks About His Journey and the One Patient Who Was Nearest to His Heart

Jerald Winakur's new book is MEMORY LESSONS: A Doctor's Story (Hyperion; January 1, 2009; Hardcover; $24.95)

Jerald Winakur is a Clinical Professor of Medicine and has practiced internal and geriatric medicine in San Antonio, Texas, for more than thirty years. MEMORY LESSONS is an honest and courageous account of Dr. Winakur's father's last years and what a family faces when dementia begins destroying memory after memory, ability after ability. Winakur traces not only the challenges this change forced on his father and his family, but also offers an informed and deeply penetrating look into a growing medical and social dilemma America faces as the Baby Boomers age. The "oldest old" have now become the fastest-growing demographic in this country, and as Winakur navigates his own father's care, he delineates the dizzying options, costs, and unexpected effects caring for this aging population will have on patients and families. Winakur speaks forthrightly about the toughness of the job and how we can best honor our elders and ourselves during those years.