September 2023 MBR The Health/Medicine Shelf

The Health/Medicine Shelf

Maybe It's Your Medications
Dr. Hedva Barenholtz Levy, pharmacist
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018
www.skyhorsepublishing.com
9781510774834, $28.99, HC, 360pp

https://www.amazon.com/Maybe-Its-Your-Medications-Unnecessary/dp/1510774831

Synopsis: There is a serious medication problem in America. It is marked not only by excessive use of medications, but by errors in how they are prescribed, monitored, and taken. An estimated nineteen million adults age sixty-five and older take five or more medications daily. These individuals and family caregivers know the frustrations of lengthy medication lists, high drug costs, and frequent questions about the need and value of those medications. All too often, an unrecognized adverse drug effect is mistaken for a new medical condition, or worse, a symptom of getting older. But who stops to question the medications?

"Maybe It's Your Medications: How to Avoid Unnecessary Drug Therapy and Adverse Drug Reactions" by professional pharmacist Dr. Hedva Barenholtz Levey tackles these problems by providing information, insider tips, and strategies that empower patients and caregivers to have important conversations about their prescription and nonprescription drugs. "Maybe It's Your Medications" deftly addresses the questions consumers want to ask about their medications and brings to light other questions they should be asking but may not know how. It is everyone's go-to guide on how to use medications safely on the journey to healthy aging.

Criteria: Dr. Hedva Barenholtz Levy is an educator and leader in geriatric pharmacy and a dual board-certified specialist. With the publication of "Maybe It's Your Medications: How to Avoid Unnecessary Drug Therapy and Adverse Drug Reactions" she applies her decades of experience to guide the non-specialist general reader in how to become an active participant on their healthcare team and prevent unintended errors and medication-related problems. Impressively comprehensive, organized, and presented, "Maybe It's Your Medications" is thoroughly 'user friendly', informative, and recommended for personal, professional, community, health clinic, college, and university library Health/Medicine collections and supplemental Pharmacy curriculum studies lists. It should be noted that "Maybe It's Your Medications" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.99).

Editorial Note: Dr. Hedva Barenholtz Levy, PharmD. (https://www.barenholtzlevy.com) is the founder of a community-based senior care pharmacy practice. A geriatric pharmacy specialist and educator, Dr. Levy has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters focusing on optimizing drug therapy in older adults.

Defying Death: Medicine's Journey Toward Immortality
Bruno Leone, author
Michael A. Leone, author
Referencepoint Press Inc
9781678205140, $25.95, HC, 144pp

https://www.amazon.com/Defying-Death-Medicines-Journey-Immortality/dp/1678205141

Synopsis: "Defying Death: Medicine's Journey Toward Immortality" by co-authors Bruno and Michael Leone is an attempt to outline where medicine has traversed in the past and to chart where it may be heading in the future. More specifically, this work endeavors to illustrate how advances in modern medical technology often leave in their wake increases in human life expectancy.

Will every new century or millennium fashion its own singular contribution to the additional number of years each human's body and mind can expect to survive? And will this continue indefinitely? Or does the story of humanity reach a chapter in which the body will no longer by heeded. Could it be that the collective consciousness of humanity will reside and hopefully even flourish on the hard-drive of a computer, creating an almost endless future -- one that several distinguished scientists, scholars, and transhumanists believe is humanity's ultimate fate?

Medical efforts to make life better and longer have progressed to the point where some see immortality as the ultimate possibility.

Critique: Inherently fascinating, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "Defying Death: Medicine's Journey Toward Immortality" is an exceptionally informative study that will be of particular and special interest to anti-aging believers and skeptics alike will appreciated this compendium of relevant information provided in a thoroughly 'reader friendly' organization and presentation. While especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library Health/Medical collections and supplemental Medical Anti-Aging curriculum studies lists, it should be noted for medical students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Defying Death: Medicine's Journey Toward Immortality" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.95)

Editorial Note #1: Michael A. Leone is a medical student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, class of 2024. He received a BS in molecular and cell biology with a concentration in neurobiology from the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with high distinction. He has been involved in research projects in the areas of neurogenetics as well as congenital cardiomyopathies. He founded the Aerospace Medicine Student and Resident Organization chapter at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and was nominated and inducted into the National Society of Leadership and Success.

Editorial Note #2: Bruno Leone earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from the Arizona State University and The University of Minnesota, respectively. He was a lecturer at the University of Minnesota and assistant professor of history at St. Francis University, Joliet, Illinois. Recipient of a Woodrow Wilson Graduate Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and two National Science Foundation Grants, he has authored numerous books, articles and anthologies including, Origin: The Story of Charles Darwin and Disease in History. He is currently adjunct professor of humanities at California State University, San Marcos where he lectures for the Osher Foundation.

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