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Background: the practical issues confronting older people who suffer chronic pain may not be tackled in a pain clinic setting and little is known of their strategies for coping. They seem to have little or no information on how to improve the quality of their lives or on resources available to them., Aim: the aim of this study was to ascertain from older people the practical, physical and psychosocial limitations they faced because of chronic pain, and the strategies they used to deal with them., Method: a qualitative approach to generating data was chosen using a Grounded Theory approach and unstructured interviews. Sixty-three people ranging from 60 to 87 years of age participated in the study. Audio-tapes were transcribed verbatim. The material was coded and collapsed into themes., Results: two main themes emerged: (i) the desire for independence and control; and (ii) adaptation to a life with chronic pain. The valuing of independence is in line with previous findings. With only three exceptions none of the participants were certain how or where to get help with practical issues and so they lived in fear of loss of their independence. Several sub-categories formed the theme of adaptation. These were acceptance and non-acceptance, pacing oneself, helping other people, the use of prayer and 'looking good and feeling good'. When independence and control is effective, older people may adapt better to chronic pain., Conclusion: understanding chronic pain sufferers from their own perspective may have important clinical implications. The interview data informed the development of a booklet designed to meet the needs of older patients with chronic pain.

Bacterial exopolysaccharide (EPS) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) molecules have been shown to play important roles in plant-bacterium interactions. Here we have demonstrated that the fix-23 loci, which compensate for exo mutations during symbiotic nodule development, are involved in the production of a novel polysaccharide that is rich in 3-deoxy-D-manno-2-octulosonic acid (Kdo) but is not the classical LPS. This molecule is likely to be a surface antigen since antiserum to whole Rhizobium meliloti cells reacts strongly with it, and since mutations in fix-23 result in an inability to produce this polysaccharide and to bind bacteriophage 16-3. It is likely that this Kdo-rich polysaccharide is analogous to certain Escherichia coli K-antigens which are anchored to the membrane via a phospholipid moiety. DNA sequence analysis of one gene cluster of this region revealed that the predicted protein products of six genes exhibit a high degree of homology and similar organization to those of the rat fatty acid synthase multifunctional enzyme domains.

One thousand patients who were anaesthetised between February and April 1990 at University Hospital, Nottingham were interviewed between 20 and 36 hours after their operation. Patients under 16 years of age, those who had undergone obstetric or intracranial surgery, those who were unable to communicate and patients who were discharged from hospital before the postoperative visit were not interviewed. A standard set of questions was used to determine the incidences of recall of events and dreams during the operation. These incidences were 0.2% and 0.9% respectively, considerably lower than reported in previous comparable studies.