Thanks to advances in science and medicine, our parents are living longer than ever before. But our health-care system doesn’t perform as well when decline eventually sets in. We want to do our best as our loved ones face new complications—more diseases and disabilities—demanding further need for support and careful judgment, but the choices we have to make can seem overwhelming.

Family doctor and geriatrician Dennis McCullough recommends a new approach: Slow Medicine. Shaped by common sense and kindness, it advocates for careful anticipatory “attending” to an elder’s changing needs rather than waiting for crises that force acute medical interventions—thereby improving the quality of elders’ extended late lives without bankrupting their families financially or emotionally. This is not a plan for preparing for death; it is a plan for understanding, for caring, and for helping those you love live well during their final years.