Six retirees, recalling their delight in outdoor movies, bring free films to remote villages.

Six retirees, recalling their delight in outdoor movies, bring free films to remote villages.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-movies25dec25,0,4337246,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

About a generation ago, this was how most Chinese watched movies: under
the stars, and mostly for free. Now a group of six retired men is trying to revive this Maoist-era tradition. Strapping an old projector and rusty cases of film reels on the back of a motorbike, they’ve been traveling rugged country roads to bring the magic of cinema to remote villages untouched by the marvels of the big screen….

This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chinese cinema. In 1905, the story goes, China’s first homemade silent movie was born in a Beijing photo studio. By the 1930s, the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai had become known as China’s Hollywood….

But it was communism that gave Chinese motion pictures a new purpose. The Communist Party relied on films to deliver mass entertainment as well as political propaganda. Film brigades became part of the landscape….

Now that China has switched to a bustling market economy, even in the countryside people can watch grainy television soap operas and pop in a pirated DVD for less than a dollar. Many old cinemas have shuttered their doors. Outdoor theaters are practically unheard of….

“China has 900 million peasants, and they need spiritual nourishment,” said Rao Changdong, 62, one of the founders of the movie caravan, whose volunteers fund the project almost entirely out of their own pockets. “VCDs and DVDs are fine, but they are limited to the small family and small screen. Movies are better because it’s more about community interaction and the big family.”…

SNAQ Assessment Tool

Here is the quick survey referred to in news reports.

http://www.slu.edu/readstory/newslink/6349

“Four Questions That May Save Your Grandma?s Life: SNAQ Screening Tool Predicts Weight Loss

ST. LOUIS — A four-question screening tool can predict which older patients with appetite problems are likely to lose weight, placing them at greater risk of death, according to Saint Louis University research.

The questionnaire is called the SNAQ (pronounced snack), the Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire, and takes less than two minutes to answer.

?This tool tells us whether a poor appetite is likely to kill you. It identifies the patients who have problems with their appetite and will go on to lose weight,? says Margaret-Mary Wilson, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine and geriatrics at Saint Louis University and lead author.

?The watch-and-wait approach is dangerous when it comes to weight loss in older adults. We?re dealing with a problem that can be fatal.? “
http://www.slu.edu/readstory/more/6348

December 13, 2005 SNAQ Assessment Tool
My appetite is
1. very poor
2. poor
3. average
4. good
5. very good

When I eat
1. I feel full after eating only a few mouthfuls
2. I feel full after eating about a third of a meal
3. I feel full after eating over half a meal
4. I feel full after eating most of the meal
5. I hardly ever feel full

Food tastes
1. very bad
2. bad
3. average
4. good
5. very good

Normally I eat
1. less than one meal a day
2. one meal a day
3. two meals a day
4. three meals a day
5. more than three meals a day

Tally the results based on the following numerical scale: a = 1, b = 2, c = 3, d = 4, e = 5. The sum of the scores for the individual items constitutes the SNAQ score. SNAQ score ?14 indicates significant risk of at least 5 % weight loss within six months.

Old abused mostly by their own children

12 December 2005 By ANNA CHALMERS

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3508689a11,00.html

Sons and daughters are responsible for 40 per cent of elderly abuse cases in New Zealand, according to a report by Age Concern’s Elder Abuse and Neglect Prevention Service.

The report, which analyses 1288 cases between July 2002 and June 2004, finds that 40 per cent of abusers are the victim’s children, 15 per cent are partners and 10 per cent caregivers and community workers.

Seventy per cent of elders abused are women. Psychological abuse, 754 cases, is the most common, followed by material or financial (537 instances), physical (253), then neglect. Sexual abuse accounts for 2 per cent of cases.
….
Threatening tactics were most common, she said. "They (family members) do it by saying, ‘If you don’t do that, you can’t see your grandchildren’. The older person then buckles because they don’t want to sever the relationship with their family.”
….

alaska : State limits rules for personal care in the home

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/7261826p-7173658c.html

Published: December 5, 2005

The state is tightening rules for a program that provides personal care in the home for thousands of Alaskans who are elderly or have disabilities.

Changes adopted last week require caregivers to have prior approval from the state before delivering services. A doctor must certify the care is needed. Clients must undergo regular assessments by a state contractor to create a plan of care. Some services may be limited.

Regulators say they hope to save money and improve accountability in the state-funded program, which has gotten attention for soaring costs.

and more from Aotearoa/New Zealand here
This is a problem in the rural USA, too.

Rural Women New Zealand presented a petition signed by 18,000 people to Labour MP Steve Chadwick at Parliament yesterday.

It urges the Government to reimburse travel expenses and time for workers who have to drive more than 15 kilometres to look after elderly and disabled clients.

Some protesters dressed in 1920s garb and arrived in a vintage Studebaker car to illustrate how little had changed since 1928, when the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers first sent a delegation to Parliament to pursue the same cause.

Rural Women president Sherrill Dackers said rural home healthcare workers were leaving the sector in droves because they had to meet travel costs.

“Because workers are not paid as they drive between clients, rural caregivers may work up to 70 hours a week to receive 40 hours’ pay.”

Non-invasive detection of hypoglycaemia using a novel, fully biocompatible and patient friendly alarm system

Over a third of dogs living with diabetic people have been reported to show various behavioural changes during their owners’ hypoglycaemic episodes.6 The three dogs reported here take canine glucose sensing to a new level of sophistication. All were clearly able to sense hypoglycaemia accurately under circumstances when the patients themselves were initially unaware of falling glucose levels. Formal calculations of sensitivity and specificity are not possible, but each dog showed her specific behaviours only when the patient had documented hypoglycaemia. Susie and Natt deserve special mention because they were able to detect nocturnal episodes in their owners and then undertook further corrective action by waking them to eat—thus going further than any available glucose sensor.

Read more here

• http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1565

In alarm state–

In take action state–

The research was conducted in part by

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