"Giving up"

Recomendado pela AMICOR Laura Barcellos

The Fallacy of 'Giving Up'

The importance of talking with a doctor about values and priorities in life—at any age

JAMES HAMBLINJAN 25 2015, 8:34 AM ET

AlexanderZam/Pupes/Shutterstock/The Atlantic

At 30 years old, a person's brain weighs about three pounds. In its capaciousness it wears the skull like a well-tailored suit. So notes Harvard professor and surgeon Atul Gawande in his most recent book Being Mortal—only to contrast that with the fact that by age 70, there is usually about an inch of space between the brain and the skull. And that's not because the skull is expanding. From just a glance at a CT scan of a person's brain, a radiologist could venture a pretty good approximation of the person's age.