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The increasing life expectancy and the alarming growth in the incidence of chronic illness make long term care services in high demand and in dire need of change and innovation. As part of the ANCIEN initiative, which aims to comprise a database of European approaches for dealing with long term care, this document creates an overview of the health systems organized in Romania which target individuals with long term care needs. The method of governance, the people's needs and the available services are presented herein. For the most part, the services provided in this field are covered through the efforts of the family of those in need and are therefore difficult to quantify or analyze. Public services are either insufficient (in terms of quality or accessibility) and the moral stigma associated to using them prevents families from making this choice. However, due to a high demand and a low supply of high quality LTC services, the private market of nursing homes has exploded in the last few years, funded either privately, through NGOs or external donations. The quality and number of available services has greatly improved but the accessibility is still low. At this moment, Romania still does not have an integrated long term care system neither from the legal or the organization of services being offered. There are social and medical services that are run, provided and legislated independently. The current national strategy is to coordinate these services and to create an integrated system with multidisciplinary teams which would include different types of medical specialists and nurses but still maintain and improve the services offered formally or informally as a home based care package.

Abstract Since the second half of the 20th century survival has been democratised in most countries. More and more people reach an advanced age. The objective of this paper is to discuss how phases of the life cycle are being re-defined in the context of a world in transformation: the universalization of social security that guarantees income for older people; technological advances that have increased the velocity of communication and the demand for continuing education; medical advances; and changes in family organization such as an increase in divorce rates, re-marriage and unions between people of the same sex. Even so, the biological changes that accompany ageing have not changed since Antiquity, in spite of hopes for a longer life. These changes occur later in life and more people live through them. Yet people continue to retire at more or less the same age. This suggests the creation of a new post retirement life phase that is distinct from adult life and the phase of fragility. We remain young for longer; indeed youth has been extended. We do not know whether this new phase will be experienced by all people. But if that becomes the case, why not include it as part of adult life?

Arguing that Paul Keating and John Howard are the twin architects of a political, economic, and social revolution, this investigation tells the story of how these two politicians carried Australia through a period of trauma and on to an era of unprecedented affluence. Between them, they altered the nation's body-clock, dominating 30 years of power as both treasurers and prime ministers. Based on exclusive interviews with both Keating and Howard, this is a brilliant, nonpartisan analysis of the forces that shape Australia today. This substantially revised and updated edition also discusses the