Reviews and Notes: The Complete Book of Menopause: Every Woman's Guide to Good Health

The Complete Book of Menopause: Every Woman's Guide to Good Health

Carol Landau, Michele G. Cyr, and Anne W. Moulton. 368 pages. New York: G. P. Putnam's; 1994. $22.95.

Landau, a psychologist, and her coauthors, who are general internists, are all faculty members at Brown University and are the founders of a hospital-based interdisciplinary practice called Women's Health Associates. This book expresses their collective opinion that menopause is not a pathologic condition but rather a stage of women's lives. The authors' detailed advice on everything relevant to the health issues of middle-aged women will be appreciated by such women, especially because the authors liberally use anecdotes to illustrate their major points and do not hold back from critiquing the inadequate treatment women have sometimes received from their physicians. The medicine seems solid. An appendix deals with the questions most frequently asked by menopausal and perimenopausal women. Many of the answers to the age-old question "What do women want?" are included, so, although male physicians may find some portions hard to take, the book would be instructive for them, especially because their women patients will probably be reading this book or another like it.