Enlightened geriatric care provides assistance to the elderly for living independently as long as possible. Essential to this amenity is the high priority placed upon restoration in coordination with other forms of therapy. Medical rehabilitation too often has been associated with employment-oriented goals and with major physical achievements. Restoration of the young spinal-injured paraplegic patient has been a model for rehabilitation medicine. The aged, also, often can be restored to optimal levels of functional capacity commensurate with their lesser needs. Rehabilitative principles for the management of disability are the same in old age as at any other time of life. Certain age-related factors, however, profoundly influence programs of restoration for the elderly. These factors need full consideration when physicians plan appropriate care for their aged patients. A list of guidelines is presented.

It's always exciting launching a new journal, and it's even better when you feel that it can genuinely benefit the community. That's how we feel about the launch of Biology Open (BiO). Discussions among the Directors of The Company of Biologists have focused in recent years on the 'pain to publish' experienced by authors-and from these discussions grew the idea of a journal that could lessen that pain. So last year, the Company conducted a survey of authors in the communities associated with its three established journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science and The Journal of Experimental Biology. Not only did the results confirm the challenges faced by authors in finding a home for their papers, but they also told us what our new journal would need to offer to make a difference.

Chronic non-rheumatic pain in the aged should be viewed in the context of physiologic and clinical alterations due to aging which may create diagnostic problems. In the elderly, the abnormality of the clinical presentation and the patient's failure to remember the time and the nature of the precipitating incident may be extremely misleading. Many clinical features may also be altered by the aging process itself. Thus the unwary physician is apt to be mistaken in establishing the etiologic basis for pain syndromes. Once a diagnosis has been achieved, it should be evaluated in the light of other age-related disturbances. Treatment should be as simple as possible. The prescription of combination preparations may involve use of a drug that is beneficial for one disorder but harmful for another. Aged persons display a marked tendency toward abnormal reactions to the usual drug regimens. A wise combination of treatment by medical means (including drugs), physiotherapy, and sometimes surgical procedures, usually is effective for the relief of this type of chronic pain.

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