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Background: Elder abuse is an increasingly important issue that must be addressed in a systematic and coordinated way., Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the perceived feasibility of establishing an elder abuse care program at hospital-based sexual assault and domestic violence treatment centers in Ontario, Canada., Method: In July 2012, a questionnaire focused on elder abuse care was distributed to all of Ontario's Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centre (SA/DVTC) Program Coordinators/Managers., Results: We found that the majority of Program Coordinators/ Managers favored expansion of their program mandates to include an elder abuse care program. However, these respondents viewed collaboration with a large network of well trained professionals and available services in the community that address elder abuse as integral to responding in a coordinated manner., Discussion: The expansion of health services to address the needs of abused older adults in a comprehensive and integrated manner should be considered as an important next step for hospital-based violence care programs worldwide.

In Germany, ambitious efforts for the implementation of well-defined quality standards in the diagnosis of and therapy for prostate cancer have resulted in the creation of certified centres over the past years. This development is in analogy to that of certified breast and intestinal centres. Concerning the prostate, there are two different models for the certification of centres. The model of the Dachverband der Prostatazentren e. V. (DVPZ) includes the most common kinds of dis-eases of the prostate, namely BPH, prostate cancer and prostatitis. On the other hand prostate cancer centres are certified by the Deutsche Krebsgesellschaft (DKG). Among German urologists there is a controversial discussion concerning this process. The present paper gives a review of the two models and discusses the chances as well as the risks which come along with certified centres.

HIV disease has recently come to be defined as a chronic disease from both policy and clinical points of view. This paper investigates the meaning and some possible implications of the redefinition. The first section examines the features identifiable from medical texts used to define a disorder as either acute or chronic and explores some of the implications of the definition on patterns of care. In particular, different types of doctor-patient relationship are examined. The second section looks at the categorisation of HIV disease using these textbook definitions, finding that HIV is most appropriately labelled as chronic. The next section uses the clinical definitions to look at two conditions for comparison with HIV; testicular cancer and multiple sclerosis. In the fourth section the policy re-definition of HIV is investigated and one of the potential effects of a policy redefinition is discussed--a change in the extent to which services are centralised. The paper concludes that the policy and clinical communities confuse the picture of HIV disease as a chronic condition. There are strong parallels between care for people with HIV disease and care delivered for an acute condition. It therefore seems likely that the policy redefinition of the disease as chronic may not be entirely adequate to use as a current model for investigating or planning patterns of care in HIV disease.