Various speech and voice disorders affect 70% to 85% of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Speech treatment is generally conducted on an individual basis, with family member involvement. Clinical experience indicates that many patients do not practice treatments at home or apply the learned techniques in everyday situations. An eight-session, task-oriented group intervention with PD patients who also had learned speech techniques individually prior to this program is described. Preliminary observations using subjective and objective measures indicate improvement in voice characteristics, self-perception of speech intelligibility, communication skills, and application of these skills in everyday communication situations.

Several QOL domains are decreased in elderly patients undergoing major head and neck surgery.

Parkinson's Disease (PD) prior to the age of 40 affects between 5-10% of the PD population. The psychosocial changes that patients with early PD encounter, may be more devastating and disabling than the actual motor disability. The paper describes a unique experience in groupwork with young female PD patients treated in the Movement Disorders Unit of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. The paper focuses on the special issues which characterized this group's experience: stigma, body and sexual image, and personality traits.

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the last few years with groups of patients who had to be admitted immediately. Several systems of tracking these patients were evaluated and the most simple and practical appiicable system was a bar-code system using the EAN (European Article Numbering) 128 symbol technique. This system is called the ABC (Automation Barcode and Chaos) system. Using this system, the team that is in charge of command and control has been able to maintain a continuous overview of the situation. Apart from patient identification and tracking, the system also includes in the registration process indicators of urgency and primary diagnoses. This system has been used during several accidents associated with the admission of multiple victims. The highest number of patients admitted using this system was 143 during the evacuation of another hospital because of the threat of a flood.It seems that less errors were made in comparison with manual registration while more information was stored. Pilot studies are being performed to evaluate this method by using it first in a prehospital environment.The ABC system already has attracted national and international attention. In principle, bar-codes can be used for regular care, replacing the existing hospital punch cards. In the Emergency Hospital, the system already has proven its value. Key Words: automatic data processing; bar-codes; disaster management and planning; patient registration; triage systems The Department of Multiple and Combined Trauma contains 75 beds in a city of 1.5 million population and has been functioning for five years. The team includes: 33 general surgeons, 2 orthopedic surgeons, and one neurosurgeon on-call 24 hours per day. The examination period which parallels the beginning of liquidation of severe disturbances of the cardiovascular system lasts 30 minutes. Examination includes: pleural puncture and drainage, peritoneal lavage, laparoscopy, ultrasound examination, echoencephalography, CT-scanning, X-ray and laboratory examinations. Videolaparscopy and videothoracoscopy are used widely in cases of superficial ruptures of abdominal solid organs, for stopping of hemorrhage from injured intercostal vessels, for sewing lung ruptures, and for liquification of curdled haemothorax, etc. There were 12,242 operations performed in the Department of Multiple and Combined Trauma during the five years. There were 6,393 patients with polytrauma treated, of which 49.8% were severe cases. The mortality rate decreased progressively from 37.2% in 1991 to 26.5% in 1996, due to the improvement of the organization of medical aid and the use of modern equipment. This presentation describes an organizational model of an information center developed by the Social Work Department of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center based on our experience with mass disasters. The Information Center is designed to provide information upon the arrival of mass casualties at the hospital following terrorist attacks or other catastrophes. The Information Center is comprised of a number of inter-related units with...