Thus The Wall Street Journal today. “People who suffer from multiple chronic illnesses often find they must take charge of managing health-care providers, especially when instructions and prescriptions conflict,” explains the newspaper. Which reminded me of the last few years of my mother’s life, when I used to take her from one doctor to another in Reading, Berkshire, ostensibly as a translator. She passed away when she was past her ninetieth birthday, and she could not manage the crowd of health-care providers involved without my help. I had all of her medications on a vast spreadsheet, as well as an entire folder stuffed with all the diagnoses she had gotten form a bunch of different specialists. I still remember how annoyed some of them used to get with me, because I was managing them all with aplomb.  And there were prescription conflicts aplenty.  In fact, many an old-timer is overseen by a close and considerably younger relative. Which only complicates the management process suggested by the newspaper. In my case, it involved managing both the doctors and my own mother. The picture that comes with the article actually shows an old woman embraced by a much younger one, presumably her daughter, both of whom are talking to a doctor in a white coat. The title of the article needs some tinkering, to be sure. And patients’ close relatives need more recognition by the medical profession.