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A Gallup survey performed Dec 2-8, 1998, showed that a majority of Canadians feel their standard of living is better than that enjoyed by their parents. Of those polled, 55% believe they have a higher standard, up from 53% last year. Age is a significant factor, with 80% of older Canadians responding positively compared to 21% of younger Canadians.

All around the world, people envision significant changes by the year 2000. Most believe they will be for the worse, according to a global study coordinated by Roper Starch Worldwide [...]

I've always loved composition books with the classic black and white marbleized cover, but now they come in so many colors. They look like candy I can't stop buying them, [...]

The regular Americans who are to speak at the Democratic convention are expected to state their complaint on the quality of their life under the administration, however, people in Swaziland have more reason to complain. Electronic Arts Inc., meanwhile, will be opening a testing center in Louisiana, which will be good for the state's economic development. A comparison of the Beijing Olympics and life is given.

Life is good in Des Moines, though it may not seem so given the $8 million that has been cut from city spending to make up for money the city [...]

As many as 55.1% of Russians say, if given a choice, they would prefer to live the life they lived before the reforms of 1091. The opinion poll, conducted by […]

While business executives outside Wisconsin generally have a favorable view of the state's business climate, in-state executives are more positive about factors related to the quality of business and personal [...]

PURPOSE: Although health-related quality of life in older people is generally assessed by measuring specific domains of health status, such as activities of daily living or pain, the association between health-status measures and patients' perceptions of their quality of life is not clear. Indeed, it is controversial whether these health-status measures should be considered measures of quality of life at all. Our objective was to determine the association between health-status measures and older patients' perceptions of their global quality of life. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional study of 493 cognitively intact patients 80 years of age and older, interviewed 2 months after a hospitalization. We measured patients' self-assessed global quality of life and four domains of health status: physical capacity, limitations in performing activities of daily living, psychological distress, and pain. RESULTS: Each of the four scales was significantly correlated with patients' global perceptions of their quality of life (P [is less than] 0.001). The ability of the health-status scales to discriminate between patients with differing global quality of life was generally good, especially for the physical capacity (c statistic = 0.72) and psychological distress scales (c statistic = 0.70). However, for a substantial minority of patients, scores on the health-status scales did not accurately reflect their global quality of life. For example, global quality of life was described as fair or poor by 15% of patients with the highest (best tertile) physical capacity scores, 25% of patients who were independent in all activities of daily living, 21% of patients with the least psychological distress (best tertile), and by 30% with no pain symptoms. Similarly, global quality of life was described as good or better by 43% of patients with the worst physical capacity (worst tertile), 49% of patients who were dependent in at least two activities of daily living, 47% of patients with the most psychological distress (worst), and 51% of patients with severe pain. CONCLUSION: On average, health status is a reasonable indicator of global quality of life for groups of older patients with recent illness. However, disagreement between patients' reported health status and their perceptions of their global quality of life was common. Therefore, assumptions about the overall quality of life of individual patients should not be based on measures of their health status alone. Am J Med. 1999;106: 435-440. [C] 1999 by Excerpta Medica, Inc.

Mariette Gareau, like many of her generation, watched Quebec change from a rural, clerical, conservative society into its present urban, permissive incarnation. At 75, she is one of the Quebecoise [...]