Product Description

Today, we know beyond any doubt that the brain plays a crucial role in our everyday health, and, indeed, makes us who we are. But the Internet, television, and newspapers abound in contradictory information about it, and, as a result, the insights we wish for and the medical choices we need to make are rarely as clear as they need to be -- especially when a family member's well-being is at stake. For decades The Dana Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded in 1950 dedicated to science, health, and education, has focused its medical initiatives on brain research. The culmination of that relentless commitment is now all here in this complete health guide to the brain. The editors -- Floyd E. Bloom, M.D.; M. Flint Beal, M.D.; and David J. Kupfer, M.D. -- are three of the world's leading medical experts in neuroscience, neurology, and psychiatry. Together with more than one hundred of America's most distinguished scientists and medical professionals, they have created an essential, easy-to-understand, and practical reference guide to the brain and how it works.

"The Dana Guide to Brain Health" is a resource that today's health consumer can trust, or what Foundation chairman William Safire calls "a kind of basic 'bible' of the brain."

The first truly accessible all-in-one source of its kind, this illustrated home reference features the latest facts and medical discoveries, combined with clear, up-to-date information on seventy-two psychiatric and neurological disorders, their diagnoses, and their treatments.

Filled with informative diagrams, tables, sidebars, graphs, charts, photographs, and drawings, along with a section listing every major consumer advocacy/informationorganization, related to brain disorders, "The Dana Guide to Brain Health" sets a new standard. In its pages readers will discover:

- The crucial steps for taking care of our brains

- The intimate connection between brain health and body health

- How the brain develops from the prenatal period and childhood through adolescence and adulthood

- How the brain regulates breathing and blood flow

- How we learn, remember, and imagine

"The Dana Guide to Brain Health" is simply the most authoritative, comprehensive, and clearly written guide to the bodily organ that is the key to our everyday health. No home should be without it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #241637 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 768 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Edited by three leading physicians from the Dana Foundation, a private foundation specializing in science and health, this volume is a comprehensive reference guide to the brain. Covering an array of topics, the book includes detailed information that goes beyond encyclopedia-type entries about medical testing, childhood development, autism and cerebral palsy and treatments for these and other diseases. The writing is clear and accessible. Some of the topics such as the healthy brain and childhood development will interest many readers, but most will probably use the book as a home medical reference, looking up individual ailments, researching illnesses that run in the family or finding helpful strategies for coping with brain difficulties. For the various illnesses, the authors define symptoms, steps to diagnosis and treatment options. Useful approaches on living with an illness are also included: for example, epilepsy sufferers are urged to have their bathroom doors open out instead of inward so the door can still open even if someone has fallen against it. Patients newly diagnosed with brain-related ailments will find this an invaluable resource.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This book calls itself the first authoritative home reference about the brain. While that claim can be disputed, there is no doubt that the three editors (all leading brain experts) and the more than 80 contributors (all physicians from major American medical institutions) are eminently qualified. Divided into four broad sections ("Understanding Your Brain," "Your Brain Through Life," "The Healthy Brain," and "Conditions of the Brain and Nervous System"), the chapters cover such diverse topics as brain development, brain health, and 72 major neurological and emotional conditions, including emotional and control disorders, infectious and autoimmune disorders, disorders of movement and muscle, and disorders of the senses. Crammed into sidebars is a wealth of additional information on such topics as common sleep disorders, prenatal tests and the brain, treatments for multiple sclerosis, and the implications of the Huntington's Disease gene. A plethora of clear black-and-white line drawings illustrate a variety of subjects, ranging from disk herniation to the facial nerves affected in Bell's palsy to the development of the fetal brain to the brain's various emotional centers. Along with helpful cross references, the book includes a glossary, an up-to-date if unannotated bibliography, a list of resource groups with full contact information, and appendixes listing the drugs used to treat brain and nervous system diseases and disorders. Although the book offers a wealth of information, it is broad, not deep; for instance, chapters on pediatric and adult brain tumors do not mention proton beam therapy as a possible treatment modality. And, surprisingly, considering the qualifications of the writers, the entries are not signed. Still, given the relatively modest price, amount of information covered, and target audience of educated lay readers, this guide is recommended, with slight reservations as noted, for all large public and consumer health libraries. Patrons who would prefer a more condensed overview can try John J. Ratey's User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention and the Four Theaters of the Brain and Mark Dubin's How the Brain Works. (Index not seen.) [The book takes its name from the Dana Foundation, a private philanthropic organization focusing on science, health, and education, whose publishing division directed this project.-Ed.]-Martha E. Stone, Massachusetts General Hosp. Lib., Bosto.
--Martha E. Stone, Massachusetts General Hosp. Lib., Boston
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Steven E. Hyman, M.D.

Provost, Harvard University; Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School; Former Director, National Institute of Mental Health