A Comparative Analysis of the Rural and Urban Older Victims of the 5.12 Sichuan Earthquake
Abstract Older people are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters but their needs are often neglected in post-disaster aid work. Even less known is how the challenges faced by rural residents differ from those faced by urban residents, due to the relative lack of support infrastructure (e.g., medical services) in rural areas, particularly in developing countries. We report here a needs assessment survey of the needs of 150 older victims of the recent earthquake in Sichuan, China, with a specific focus on the comparison between urban and rural residents. Case studies were used to provide more in-depth illustrations where appropriate. The findings revealed a variety of unmet needs, both tangible and intangible, of the older victims. The majority of the victims expressed worries about not being able to afford housing, basic necessities, and long-term medical care. Such worries were noticeably more pronounced among rural than urban residents. Besides, many participants suffered loss of multiple family members and were still in a state of grief. The needs of the victims were discussed in the context of China's disaster relief policies, as well as differential social protection policies for urban and rural residents.
[Gerontosocial work in the context of Russian culture and recommendations of Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing].
The definition of gerontosocial work adopted in the majority of the European countries in the context of the Russian culture and priority trends of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing has been discussed. In the article the interaction and differences between terms being used in social work with the elderly people in Russia have been showed; tasks and peculiarities of gerontosocial work have been defined. Peculiarities of interaction between personnel and elderly patients have been studied; the increasing requirements to the professionalism of gerontosocial workers have been proved.
Size-selective neuronal changes in the anterior optic pathways suggest a differential susceptibility to injury in multiple sclerosis.
Axonal damage is found in both acute and chronic lesions of multiple sclerosis. Direct axon counting in post-mortem tissue has suggested that smaller axons might have a greater susceptibility to damage, but methodological limitations have precluded unequivocal interpretation. However, as neuronal and axonal sizes are linked and neuronal changes would be expected with retrograde or transsynaptic degeneration following axon injury, we hypothesized that an alternative strategy for studying this phenomenon would be to define multiple sclerosis-associated changes in neurones. To test this hypothesis, we measured both axonal loss and neuronal size changes in the anterior optic pathway [including the optic nerve (ON), optic tract (OT) and lateral geniculate nucleus] of the brains of eight patients who died with multiple sclerosis and in eight control brains. The ONs and OTs in brains from the multiple sclerosis patients showed a trend to smaller mean cross-sectional areas (ON, multiple sclerosis = 6.84 mm(2), controls = 9.25 mm(2); and OT, multiple sclerosis = 6.45 mm(2), controls = 7.94 mm(2), P = 0.08) and had reduced axonal densities (ON, multiple sclerosis = 1.1 x 10(5)/mm(2), controls = 1.7 x 10(5)/mm(2); and OT, multiple sclerosis = 1.4 x 10(5)/mm(2), controls = 1.8 x 10(5)/mm(2), P = 0.006). Estimated total axonal counts were reduced by 32 (OT)-45% (ON) in the patients relative to controls (ON, multiple sclerosis = 8.1 x 10(5) axons, controls = 14.8 x10(5), P = 0.05; and OT, multiple sclerosis = 9.1 x 10(5), controls = 13.3 x 10(5), P = 0.02). The size distributions of the magnocellular cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus were similar for the two groups, but in multiple sclerosis brains the parvocellular cells were significantly smaller (mean sizes: multiple sclerosis = 226 microm(2), controls = 230 microm(2), P < 0.001) and had a larger variation in size, suggesting a greater proportion of atrophic neurones. Axon loss in the optic nerves of multiple sclerosis patients correlated strongly with measures of increased dispersion of cell sizes in the parvocellular layer (r = 0.8, P < 0.04). These data demonstrate that both atrophy and decreased density contribute to the substantial axonal loss in the anterior visual pathway of these patients. This appears related to a relatively selective atrophy of the smaller neurones of the parvocellular layer in the lateral geniculate nucleus, supporting the hypothesis that smaller axons may be preferentially susceptible to injury in multiple sclerosis.