This new open access edition supported by the Fragility Fracture Network aims at giving the widest possible dissemination on fragility fracture (especially hip fracture) management and notably in countries where this expertise is sorely needed. It has been extensively revised and updated by the experts of this network to provide a unique and reliable content in one single volume. Throughout the book, attention is given to the difficult question of how to provide best practice in countries where the discipline of geriatric medicine is not well established and resources for secondary prevention are scarce. The revised and updated chapters on the epidemiology of hip fractures, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, surgery, anaesthesia, medical management of frailty, peri-operative complications, rehabilitation and nursing are supplemented by six new chapters. These include an overview of the multidisciplinary approach to fragility fractures and new contributions on pre-hospital care, treatment in the emergency room, falls prevention, nutrition and systems for audit. The reader will have an exhaustive overview and will gain essential, practical knowledge on how best to manage fractures in elderly patients and how to develop clinical systems that do so reliably.

To a certain extent the dementias have been forgotten diseases until just recen tly when they were brought to the attention of the general public and health authorities as a result of the increasing number of cases in the aging popula tion, especially among famous people, and because of the efforts of private foundations. The goals of the present volume are to present the dementias to health prac titioners, to provide some basic information on their epidemiology and biolo gical basis and to discuss the diagnostic and clinical problems that physicians and institutions face when caring for demented patients. This book explores the various types of dementias and is not limited to Alzheimer's disease although, as expected, more information is available and presented on this pathology. On the other hand, a few fundamental questions on dementia can only be answe red through a comparison of the various forms. Examples of such questions are the following: Is the loss of cerebral tissue sufficient to cause dementia? Are there thresholds or is there a continuous progression toward the irreversible development of dementia? Are there common pathways in the dementing pro cess? Are there common risk factors? Comparative analysis allows the common and distinctive patterns of the various dementias to be defined, ultimately lea ding to more focused therapeutic interventions.

This volume contains 40 selected full-text contributions from the Sixth European Conference on Geostatistics for Environmental Applications, geoENV IV, held in Rhodes, Greece, October 25-26, 2006. The objective of the editors was to compile a set of papers from which the reader could perceive how geostatistics is applied within the environmental sciences. A few selected theoretical contributions are also included.