Nurses as new heroes of modern times. Int. Nurs. Rev. 68,[163][164][165] Background: Difficult times of epidemics, wars and an ageing population have made humanity aware of the important role to be played by those who, at the risk of their own health and lives, help and care for others, are the new superheroes of modern reality. Nurses are the foundation of any healthcare system. Today, many of them are on the front line in the fight against COVID-19. Without nurses and other health professionals, the world will not win the fight against epidemics or pandemics or achieve the health potential of populations. Aim: The main purpose of this article is to draw attention to the heroic work of nurses and the role they have to fulfil in society. Their daily work, hardship and courage can be called heroism, especially when in times of epidemics or pandemics they risk their own lives to care for and support those most in need. Conclusion:The greatest heroes of today are health professionals, among whom nurses play a key role. The new superheroes can be a symbol of hope, tenacity, courage and persistence of humanity, no matter how difficult a challenge fate presents. Implications for nursing, and Social Policy.

The known theories discussing the essence of consciousness have been recently updated. This prompts an attempt to integrate these explanations concerning several distinct components of the consciousness phenomenon such as the ego, and qualia perceptions. Therefore, it is useful to consider the latest publications on the ‘Orch OR’ and ‘cemi’ theories, which assume that quantum processing occurs in microtubules and that the brain’s endogenous electromagnetic field is important. The authors combine these explanations with their own theory describing the neural circuits realizing imagery. They try to present such an interdisciplinary, integrated theoretical model in a manner intuitively understandable to people with a typical medical education. In order to do this, they even refer to intuitively understandable metaphors. The authors maintain that an effective comprehension of consciousness is important for health care professionals because its disorders are frequent medical symptoms in emergencies, during general anesthesia and in the course of cognitive disorders in elderly people. The authors emphasize the current possibilities to verify these theses regarding the essence of consciousness thanks to the development of functional brain imaging methods—magnetoencephalography, transcranial magnetic stimulation—as well as clinical studies on the modification of perceptions and feelings by such techniques as mindfulness and the use of certain psychoactive substances, especially among people with self-awareness and identity disorders.

The aim of this study is to present the available and verified methods of prevention of cognitive decline in healthy older adults and to review clinical trials of therapies to improve impaired cognitive performance. We discuss data about the actual possibility of pharmacological treatment, usefulness of physical exercises, and effectiveness of different cognitive training methods.In a separate chapter we discuss why older people cope much better in life challenges then it would appear from the measurements made by use of neuro-psychological tests.We also discuss the so-called issue of transfers, ie, the question of how certain cognitive characteristics, improved through cognitive training, are transferred to other mental skills.We distinguish between simple and sophisticated (usually computerized) forms of cognitive training and pay particular attention to methods that are simple and easy to use. In particular, we discuss the so-called “learning therapy”, which amounts to “reading aloud and simple arithmetic calculations”, the method based on “switching between words and imagination”, and also the method consisting of personal counseling, support, and assistance in learning, especially in the form of home visits.In the final chapter we formulate practical advice, not only for individuals who want to undertake the preventing or correction activities alone with eventual help of medical professionals, but also for the members of health institutions that wish to implement preventive and therapeutic actions directed to a chosen population. We also discuss the indications and rationale for further research and clinical trials.

In this letter to the Editor, the authors comment recent publications about the attempts to remote realizations of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in the treatment of anxiety disorders in elderly. The distinguished clinical situation is a part of a wider problem that can be named as "global crisis of aging populations". The use of CBT in many geriatric clinical situations is very effective, however, such therapy is very time-consuming, what hamper its widespread utilizations in practice. The authors therefore propose to support this form of treatment by determining so-called 'therapeutic tasks'. They derive the rationale for the proposed method from the analysis of the acting elements of various, new forms of CBT in combination with the analysis of sources of psychological resistance (resilience) of those older people who are doing well. The essence of the method proposed by the authors is assigning tasks which facilitate to patients' remembering of their 'trajectory of life'. The patients are then much more aware of unresolved psychological conflicts. The next tasks aid the patients to search for solutions to such mental problems and create a balanced imagery of their lives.

Older people often exhibit memory impairments. Contemporary demographic trends cause aging of the society. In this situation, it is important to conduct clinical trials of drugs and use training methods to improve memory capacity. Development of new memory tests requires experiments on animals and then clinical trials in humans. Therefore, we decided to review the assessment methods and search for tests that evaluate analogous cognitive processes in animals and humans.This review has enabled us to propose 2 pairs of tests of the efficiency of working memory capacity in animals and humans.We propose a basic set of methods for complex clinical trials of drugs and training methods to improve memory, consisting of 2 pairs of tests: 1) the Novel Object Recognition Test – Sternberg Item Recognition Test and 2) the Object-Location Test – Visuospatial Memory Test. We postulate that further investigations of methods that are equivalent in animals experiments and observations performed on humans are necessary.

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BackgroundThe authors postulate that the recent intensification of the nationalist and xenophobic attitude in Poland and other Eastern European countries is detrimental to public mental health. The xenophobic attitude is accompanied by a higher incidence of anxiety and depression, disputes due to the polarization of opinions, a sense of embarrassment and a sense of contradictions with so-called Christian values, unfavorable demographic predictions and reduced life satisfaction.DiscussionThe authors attempt to describe the sequence of adverse events that led to the intensification of xenophobia and characterize the current state of public mental health in European countries. They formulate and propose possible actions which could counteract the consequences of that transformation.Short conclusionThe actions which may be undertaken to counteract the deterioration of public mental health can be based on the recommendations of so-called ‘positive psychology’ and ‘positive psychiatry’ as well as the principles of strengthening local social capital.

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