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Brocklehurst's textbook of geriatric medicine and gerontology (7th Edition)

Article  in  Age and Ageing · April 2011

DOI: 10.1093/ageing/afr009

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Age and Ageing 2011; 40: 409 © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society.
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Book reviews
Brocklehurst’s textbook of geriatric medicine
and gerontology (7th Edition)
H. M. Fillit, K. Rockwood, K. Woodhouse, and
Saunder Philadelphia
Elsevier, 2010, 1152 pp,
ISBN: 9781416062318, £168
Dürer’s description of Bellini in late life—‘the master is
old, but in painting still the best’—applies to this, the most
well-established geriatric medicine and gerontology text-
book, now in its 7th edition. The combination of a general
gerontology introduction with geriatric medicine remains a
successful formula, and the access to the online text is a
valuable bonus. The format has been kept impressively
compact, and the authorship has a more pronounced
North American flavour—of 209 contributors, 50% are
from the USA, 33% from the UK and 9% from Canada.
A good geriatric medicine textbook requires wit and a
deft touch to steer between the lacunes in our knowledge
and nosology of complex syndromes of later life while pro-
viding pragmatic and sensible approaches. The editors and
contributors succeed with panache. Even so, every Persian
carpet has deliberate flaws to highlight the perfection of the
rest. Therefore, with confidence in the healthy ageing of this
classic textbook, a few suggestions for future editions: more
continental European contributors (less than 4% in this
edition), more emphasis on the demographic dividend (why
does every review of cognitive ageing omit what we gain
with later life?), rethink causation (surely drugs precipitate
rather than cause orthostatic hypotension in susceptible indi-
viduals?) and a chapter on driving/transportation.
Notwithstanding, this remains the leading major text in what
is thankfully a growing and ever more competitive market.
DESMOND O’NEILL
Email: doneill@tcd.ie
doi: 10.1093/ageing/afr009
Published electronically 1 March 2011
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Psychology of Aging
Martin Orrell
Ashgate, 2009, 406 pp,
ISBN: 9780754627890, £125
The review of this book of key papers fortunately
coincided with the preparation of a 3rd year module on
the psychology of ageing. It made the preparation of my
module less time consuming, since almost all the topics I
intended to cover were addressed in the book by relevant
and important research papers. The range of papers
Downloaded from http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on October 11, 2016
includes older classics as well as recent research. There
are key cognitive papers using longitudinal data to study
ageing and cognition. Turning to social and emotional
functioning, there are papers on both social networks
and social support, and when focusing on families and
carers there are key papers on stress and on caregiver
burden. I was also pleased to see a classic paper on
spousal bereavement in later life. There is an even spread
of papers dealing with everyday ageing, as well as those
focusing on more clinical aspects such as depression and
dementia, and a spread of papers covering both basic
science and application. Although this book is a collec-
tion of key papers and not a textbook, I will certainly
use this book both in my teaching and in my own
research when dealing with unfamiliar areas. I will be
recommending this book for the library.
KATE M. BENNETT
University of Liverpool
Email: k.m.bennett@liverpool.ac.uk
doi: 10.1093/ageing/afr013
Published electronically 4 March 2011
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