Geriatric medicine and cultural gerontology

T.S. Eliot once proposed that there were two sorts of problems in life. One prompted the question, 'What are we going to do about it?' and the other provoked the questions, 'What does it mean? How does one relate to it?' Geriatric medicine, an eminently practical specialty, has concentrated with good effect on the former but with notable exceptions has yet to devote significant time to the latter. Into this breach has developed an innovative and exciting movement in gerontology to provide a deeper and more comprehensive insight into the meaning of ageing. Largely encompassed by the terms of cultural, humanistic and narrative gerontology, their intent and methodologies in many ways mirror the relationship between the medical humanities, narrative medicine and medicine.