The Merck Manual of Health & Aging seeks to
explain what other books on aging do not:.

• How the body ages
• Preventive medical care and good nutrition
• Caregiving, hospital care, surgery, rehabilitation, long-term care, and palliative and end-of-life care
• Most of the medical disorders and conditions that are common in older adults or that affect them differently, including cancer, pain, dementia, delirium, falls, osteoporosis, and urinary incontinence
• How to communicate health care needs and wants and improve relationships with health care practitioners
• Obtaining medical services, organizing care, and finding necessary resources
• Medical tests
• Drugs and aging
• Alternative and complementary medicine
• Exercise for older adults with medical disorders
• How to cope with disease
• Social, legal, and ethical issues

Designed to be easy for older adults to read and use.

• Large type size and written in everyday language
• Two-color, high-contrast design
• 66 chapters organized into four sections
• Easy-to-follow cross-referencing symbols within the text
• Helpful tables, graphs, and illustrations that further explain the text
• Table of commonly used trade name drugs and their generic equivalents
• Detailed index with thousands of entries