Lucy Pollock

Today, we are living longer lives, and have choices now as never before about how we will age. What will make us happy? What are we frightened of, and what might allay those fears? What changes, made right now, will help us to flourish as we age? This book contains lessons I've learned from thirty years of working with older people and those close to them. It looks at problems that can be fixed with tests and tablets, and problems that require a different sort of medicine. I explain what I have been taught about loss, about impossible families, about becoming older without children, and the important things I have learned about sexuality, race, love, and living with uncertainty. The power has been in the wrong place for too long – medical teams have not always heard the voices of older people or those who love them. But if we are given power to influence the lives of our future selves, how best shall we use it? What do we want? What difference can we make? This is the moment for us to act, to set in place a better society for older people, and to build the future we want for ourselves.

Now more than ever, we need to talk about getting older. Many of us are living to a very great age. But how do we give those we love, and eventually ourselves, long lives that are as happy and healthy as possible? Dr Lucy's book gives us answers to the questions we can voice - and those that we can't. This essential guide will guide you through those important conversations around growing older, answering every question you might have, including: * How do we start the conversation? * How do we ask whether it's worth taking seven different medicines? * Is it normal to find you're falling out of love with someone, as they disappear into dementia? * Should Dad be driving, and if not, who can stop him? * What are the secrets of the best care homes? * When does fierce independence become bad behaviour? * How do you navigate near-impossible discussions around resuscitation and intensity of treatments? * And who decides what happens when we become ill? Serious, funny, kind and knowledgeable, this readable book helps guide us through essential conversations about getting older that go straight to the heart of what matters most.