Mrs Isabella Elder, LL.D., pioneer and philanthropist.

Mrs Isabella Elder contributed much during her lifetime to further the education of women of all ages and of all levels of attainment. She gifted North Park House to Queen Margaret College in Glasgow as a home in 1884. With her encouragement a medical school for women in Glasgow was opened in Queen Margaret College in 1890. The standard was high and when women were admitted to the Universities in 1892, the first Queen Margaret medical students were able to graduate in 1894. She pioneered a system of teaching home economics in Govan, assisted the development of a district nursing service and built the Elder Cottage Hospital.

A multicentre hospital study to compare the hypnotic efficacy of loprazolam and nitrazepam.

A multicentre, parallel group hospital study was carried out in 190 subjects with insomnia to compare the efficacy, incidence of hangover and the side-effects of loprazolam and nitrazepam. Following 2 nights single-blind phase on placebo, loprazolam (1.0 mg), nitrazepam (5.0 mg) or placebo was administered double-blind for 7 consecutive nights. Visual analogue scales and questions were used to rate efficacy. There was no statistically significant difference between loprazolam and nitrazepam for 'ease of getting to sleep', 'restfulness of sleep' and 'depth of sleep'. Like nitrazepam, loprazolam diminished the number of periods of wakefulness and made it 'easier to get to sleep again'. Subjective evaluation showed that hangover was not a feature of loprazolam. It did not affect morning alertness and patients thought they had improved balance and co-ordination while on this drug. These findings are in keeping with the evidence of other workers who have shown only minimal psychomotor impairment, if any, with loprazolam (1.0 mg). There was no statistically significant difference between treatments with respect to frequency or incidence of side-effects.

Attitudes and anxieties of elderly patients on admission to a geriatric assessment unit.

A semi-structured interview schedule has been used to investigate the attitudes and anxieties of 100 lucid elderly patients on admission to a geriatric assessment unit. Results show that most patients are unconcerned by admission to a geriatric unit and expect a favourable outcome. A minority, mainly higher social class patients, or those who do not live with a close relative, are disturbed by the geriatric nature of the ward and in particularly by the presence of confused patients. More than half the group reacted unfavourably to the idea of admission to local authority residential accommodation.

Cerebral blood flow and intelligence rating in persons over 90 years old.

Cerebral blood flow (CBF) and intellectual rating scale (IRS) measurements were carried out in 54 subjects over the age of 90. Two successive measurements of CBF by the xenon-133 inhalation method, 20 min apart, were made in 38 of these persons under the same conditions in order to measure the precision (repeatability) of the CBF technique on this subject category. A statistically significant lower mean cerebral blood flow was found for this over-90-year-old group compared to young adults. The subjects were divided into subgroups according to their IRS score from normal to severely demented. Resting CBF in the various IRS groups did not differ significantly. However at low IRS values there was much less variability between successive CBF measurements in the same individual suggesting failing vasomotor tone with senile dementia.

Unblocking beds: a geriatric unit's experience with transferred patients.

A study was made of all patients admitted to a geriatric unit over several years. The admission policy included a high degree of priority to requests for transfer from acute beds, which resulted in transferred patients accounting for 25% of admissions. Unblocking acute beds did not lead to prolonged delay in admitting patients from the community to the geriatric unit. Almost 30% of beds allocated to transferred patients were recovered in 30 days.

Effects of a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor on cerebral blood flow in geriatric patients.

A carbonic anhydrase inhibitor (UK-12,130) was shown to increase cerebral blood flow in mildly demented geriatric patients. Oral administration caused a significant increase in blood flow at two different dose levels; this persisted for at least six weeks, which was the duration of the longest study. There was no consistent improvement in mentation during treatment. Blood blow was measured by the washout of 133Xe after inhalation of this inert gas.