Objective: To identify and analyse the contexts in which Alzheimer's disease is portrayed in the New Zealand print media. Methods: Items from 15 newspapers from over a 5-year period, which contained the word 'Alzheimer's', were subjected to a qualitative interpretive analysis to determine recurring patterns of the representation of Alzheimer's disease. Results: The word 'Alzheimer's' was found in notices, scientific reports, obituaries, personal stories, 'missing people' reports and reports dealing with residential care for people with Alzheimer's disease. The advocacy organisation, Alzheimers New Zealand, was called upon frequently by the media to speak for people with Alzheimer's disease and their families. Conclusion: The analysis revealed that the media remains a powerful transmitter of stereotypes. In the case of Alzheimer's disease these included those associated with ageing and with dementia.

Sexuality as well as gender can be added to the range of socio-structural factors that influence the social patterning of sleep. This paper draws on in-depth interviews with 20 women and men aged between 45 – 65 years in same-sex couple relationships to examine how they negotiate their sleeping arrangements. The paper contends that gender differences are evident in how these negotiations are played out in the bedroom with women and men in same-sex relationships mirroring some of the patterns demonstrated in the research about women and men in opposite-sex couple relationships. However there are also differences, both between the same-sex women and men, and also when compared with the research concerned with the sleep negotiations between opposite-sex couples. These differences relate to the strategies used in managing a same-sex coupled identity with sharing a bed part of this management.

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This article illustrates how health practitioners are portrayed through advice columns, articles, personal accounts, and advertisements in women's magazines. Magazines provide a valuable source of information about health services and also influence lay knowledge about health and illness. A wide variety of health practitioners provide information and advice in women's magazines, ranging from orthodox medical practitioners to alternative practitioners. However, there is a blurring of boundaries between these, with orthodox practitioners sometimes including alternative therapies in their practice and alternative therapists sometimes encompassing a number of orthodox therapies within their practice. The way health practitioners are represented in the media has implications for how their expertise in health issues is evaluated and used by consumers of health care services.