[Regional diversity in the situation of the elderly in rural areas].

The situation of the elderly in Poland differs, sometimes quite significantly, among regions and smaller areas of the country. It concerns particularly rural areas. The study, initiated by the Polish Society of Gerontology in the years 1999-2001 in six chosen rural areas, allowed the evaluation of these differences.

The mechanism of the silent zone on Lorenz plots in atrial fibrillation.

Lorenz plot is an acknowledged method of the evaluation of sequences of ventricular beats in cardiac arrhythmias, particularly in atrial fibrillation. Lorenz plots are scatterplots that show the R-R intervals as a function of the preceding R-R intervals. The authors of this paper conducted studies of 83 cases of atrial fibrillation; histograms of 500 consecutive R-R intervals were made, determining the mean R-R interval, the functional refraction period (FRP) of AV node and Lorenz plots.