Retirement from work can present a significant adjustment challenge for the older population financially, socially and emotionally. Retirement has been identified as a significantly stressful event. Work provides both a structured activity within a regular time frame and a sense of purpose and daily meaning. Energy is channelled into intellectual, creative, and/or physical tasks that offer a sense of satisfaction when they are completed. The planning for retirement is associated with successful adaptation. A realization of the potential and rewards of retirement will also facilitate this adaptation.

Understanding the complexity of another culture's health concerns is fraught with difficulty, yet 'ways forward' abound. Many researchers, including Indigenous people, have recorded cultural understandings of health, and made recommendations that have influenced the planning of Indigenous peoples' mental health care. Indeed, there is anticipation with vision for the future. Australian Indigenous people have suffered many losses, which have resulted in much social unrest, and mental and spiritual sorrow. The difficulty of belonging and adjusting to two different cultural contexts has led to particular physical health and mental health concerns for some. Health for Indigenous people is viewed within a holistic and community lifestyle framework, which is related to both past and present issues, and it is not necessarily individualized or compartmentalized. A closer liaison between the health traditions of both cultures, working together with education, good will and understanding of each other's health business, and working together within mainstream health services may assist with healing, reconciliation and improved Aboriginal holistic health.

One hundred and forty people over the age of 50 randomly sampled from a single-handed British general practice were screened for dementia using the Kendrick Cognitive Tests for the Elderly. The tests results were compared with actuarial data concerning health and health services provision. The results indicate that there are clear interrelations between low but non-dementing scores in memory and speed performance with the use of services, mobility levels and chronic disorders.

This paper examines a selection of the current literature to gain information concerning opioids, addiction profiles, public opinion, legal issues and withdrawal protocols. Hundreds of Australians have died at a young age due to the complications of their own opioid misuse. This paper outlines what has been achieved in recent times in the management of people withdrawing from opioid misuse, as well as reviewing the new evidence that offers hope for faster opioid withdrawal and rehabilitation.

No abstract