Watch their toes. How do you measure?

One of my favoriter doctor/writers, Atul Gawande, had a piece in the New Yorker last April about taking care of our aging population.

Among many things he said, I remember these:

- We're losing geriatricians as we need them more.

- You can take a really good measure of someone's health without any fancy machines, but you do need close attention, experience and insight. One of the physicians he profiles pays attention to his patients toes and toenails. They're like sentinel chickens, harbingers of illness to come.

If you live far away or even see your parents each day, how do you keep track of their health.

And, here's a link to the New Yorker article [newyorker.com], if you'd like to read it.