Older adults, falls and technologies for independent living: a life space approach

This paper draws attention to the need for further understanding of the fine details of routine and taken-for-granted daily activities and mobility. It argues that such understanding is critical if technologies designed to mitigate the negative impacts of falls and fear-of-falling are to provide unobtrusive support for independent living. The reported research was part of a large, multidisciplinary, multi-site research programme into responses to population ageing in Ireland, Technologies for Independent Living (TRIL). A small, exploratory, qualitative life-space diary study was conducted. Working with eight community-dwelling older adults with different experiences of falls or of fear-of-falls, data were collected through weekly life-space diaries, daily-activity logs, two-dimensional house plans and a pedometer. For some participants, self-recording of their daily activities and movements revealed routine, potentially risky behaviour about which they had been unaware, which may have implications for falls-prevention advice. The findings are presented and discussed around four key themes: ‘being pragmatic’, ‘not just a faller’, ‘heightened awareness and blind spots’ and ‘working with technology’. The findings suggest a need to think creatively about how technological and other solutions best fit with people's everyday challenges and needs and of critical importance, that their installation does not reduce an older adult to ‘just a faller’ or a person with a fear-of-falls

Chapter 6b. Chungkai Showcase : Chungkai Hospital Camp | Part Two: Mid-May 1944 to July 1945

During the latter half of 1944 and the early part of 1945, entertainment continued to flourish in Chungkai even though the theatre was flooded out by monsoon rains and the number of audience members was severely depleted by away Parties. Challenging the thinking of what entertainment directed toward audiences recovering from trauma should contain, Leo Britt produced a series of straight plays that had them clamoring for more. But ever-tightening restrictions on what could be presented on stage, and a new policy assigning performers to maintenance parties, began to diminish what those who remained in camp could accomplish.https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/thdabooks/1009/thumbnail.jp

Recipe for Victory: The Fight for Hill 677 during the Battle of the Kap’yong River, 24-25 April 1951

During the night of 24–25 April 1951, the Second Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry fought what became the most famous Canadian battle of the Korean War. Outnumbered and isolated, the Princess Pats repulsed wave after wave of attacking Chinese infantry from their positions atop Hill 677 overlooking the Kap’yong River Valley. Although a comparatively minor episode in the broader context of the Korean War, Canadian retention of Hill 677 made an important contribution to the Commonwealth victory at Kap’yong. More significantly, the fight for Hill 677 was clearly the most successful set-piece engagement fought by the Canadians in Korea. In recognition of their achievement, the Princess Pats were awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation—the only Canadian unit ever to earn this distinction. Although clearly an important event for the Canadians, the fight for Hill 677 has received little scholarly attention in Canada. Commonwealth historians, in contrast, have been busy. Examining the action from the perspective of the New Zealand gunners who supported the Canadians, Ian MacGibbon suggested that artillery fire was the key to victory, and saved the beleaguered Patricias from certain defeat. Although supporting fire, including that from the Canadians themselves, was the single most important factor in the successful defence of Hill 677, it was by no means the only one. An operational analysis of the battle reveals that the Second World War experiences of the Patricias’ senior officers, the specialized nature of the battalion’s pre-battle training program, high morale, and the failure of the enemy to coordinate and press his attack also helped to make the Canadian stand possible

Not for God Queen or Country

Much has been written about volunteers who offer nursing aid during times of conflict or natural disaster both before and since Florence Nightingale's high profile mission in the Crimean war. Adventure and travel, religious conviction, national pride and a desire to care for the wounded are cited as motivators. Military nursing is now well established, the lack of immediate threat of war or invasion removes any perception of necessity to volunteer and the secularisation of health care minimises the presence of religion as a factor. Furthermore women can travel and seek adventure without further justification than the pleasure of doing so. This research grew out of curiosity to understand in what ways nurses, who volunteered for humanitarian work at the close of the 20th century, were similar to those who did so 100 years earlier. Following ethical approval oral histories were recorded with 7 nurses, who happen to be female, who worked for Médecins Sans Frontières during the 1990s and early 2000s. Médecins Sans Frontières was chosen as it espouses a strongly secular and international philosophy. Their histories illuminate the ways in which they came to work for Médecins Sans Frontières, locating their experiences within their life story and identity as nurses and women. Drawing on extracts from the oral history accounts, this paper will explore the extent to which motivations have remained constant over time, and the way in which their ordinary and extraordinary experiences coexist

Spartan Daily, November 29, 1937

Volume 26, Issue 45https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/2685/thumbnail.jp

I Am Haunted by the Question of What I Shall Do : The Vocational Struggles of a Teenage Girl in the 1940s as Seen through Her Diary Accounts

The immediate post-WWII era was a time of great transition and difficulty for many younger women. Among these difficulties for teenage women just graduating from high school loomed key vocational choices. Typically, these choices involved either taking up the traditional gender track role as housewife and mother, or going to college, postponing marriage, and developing a professional career. Although there have been studies investigating such circumstances, little attention has been given to the individual emotional aspects of this difficult vocational journey. In response to this void, this descriptive study seeks to gain deeper insight into the vocational struggles of one particular Midwest teenage woman in the immediate postwar era through the examination of her personal diaries

Augmenting human memory using personal lifelogs

Memory is a key human facility to support life activities, including social interactions, life management and problem solving. Unfortunately, our memory is not perfect. Normal individuals will have occasional memory problems which can be frustrating, while those with memory impairments can often experience a greatly reduced quality of life. Augmenting memory has the potential to make normal individuals more effective, and those with significant memory problems to have a higher general quality of life. Current technologies are now making it possible to automatically capture and store daily life experiences over an extended period, potentially even over a lifetime. This type of data collection, often referred to as a personal life log (PLL), can include data such as continuously captured pictures or videos from a first person perspective, scanned copies of archival material such as books, electronic documents read or created, and emails and SMS messages sent and received, along with context data of time of capture and access and location via GPS sensors. PLLs offer the potential for memory augmentation. Existing work on PLLs has focused on the technologies of data capture and retrieval, but little work has been done to explore how these captured data and retrieval techniques can be applied to actual use by normal people in supporting their memory. In this paper, we explore the needs for augmenting human memory from normal people based on the psychology literature on mechanisms about memory problems, and discuss the possible functions that PLLs can provide to support these memory augmentation needs. Based on this, we also suggest guidelines for data for capture, retrieval needs and computer-based interface design. Finally we introduce our work-in-process prototype PLL search system in the iCLIPS project to give an example of augmenting human memory with PLLs and computer based interfaces

Librarian Class Attendance: Blogs, statistics, outcomes and opportunities.

What, if any, are the benefits of having librarians attend lectures and seminars? In the midst of a start-up program, the librarians at the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar were challenged to test new models of active participation while demonstrating positive outcomes. This paper describes the setting, methods, and outcomes associated with having librarians attend courses as active members in an evolving learning environment. Interactions with faculty and students will be analyzed to assess whether course attendance benefits professional relationships in a way that positively impacts student learning. In parallel, an examination of assessment measures for determining value of service will also be undertaken

Documentary sources for the history of the Maltese general practitioner

The history of the Maltese General Practitioner (GP) remains to be written. Such history will enhance the identity of the family doctor and prove indispensable to characterise the Maltese context of practice. To list some of the resources available for the study of the history of the Maltese GP and use it to provide an overview of relevant material for the pre-seventeenth- century period. Over the past ten years, note was made of the material and literature encountered that could be of relevance to Maltese medical history in general and that of the Maltese GP in particular. Further information was obtained by consulting the references and other information provided by these works. These sources were categorized. As a case study, information on community medical services preceding 1600 AD was collected to come up with an account that goes beyond a strictly chronological overview, giving particular attention to other details such as training, remuneration, political involvement as well as gender and social issues. Evidence has been presented for fifteenth century community health services in Gozo and Mdina. In the following century, such service spread to a number of villages in Malta, financed by institutions or private individuals.peer-reviewe