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Neurologist Dr. Ruth Mariva Sp.S during a virtual meeting "Being Happy in Old Age" at Bandar Lampung, Saturday (November 20, 2021). (ANTARA/Ruth Intan Sozometa Kanafi/KT) - 

Families should be more aware of early detection, as it is necessary to prevent severe dementia among the elderly, Neurologist Dr. Ruth Mariva Sp.S stated.

"Managing dementia in the elderly is important. The first step to be taken is to detect early in order to prevent deterioration," Mariva remarked during a virtual meeting in Bandar Lampung on Saturday.

The neurologist highlighted that early detection is noticeable from the symptoms, such as a decline in brain functioning due to decreasing acetylcholine substances in brain cells. These symptoms may arise due to old age.

Dementia is a decline in the brain’s ability to perform basic functions, such as thinking, remembering, speaking, and making decisions.

"Currently, human life expectancy gets higher, thereby increasing the number of elderly. Some 80 percent of the elderly have comorbidity. One of which is the decrease in acetylcholine in brain cells that has an important function in the central nervous system to process memory," she explained. 

Hence, Mariva advised to not underestimate the symptoms of senility.

According to the neurologist, in addition to the early detection of dementia symptoms, it is also necessary to keep the elderly away from risk factors.

"Manage risk factors that will affect development of the disease through ways, such as maximizing the brain function and getting sufficient rest of six to eight hours a day, as lack of sleep will worsen senility," she expounded.

Mariva drew attention to early warning signs of dementia in the elderly, such as often forgetting new information, difficulty in doing daily activities, difficulty in speaking, quick mood and behavioral changes, and difficulty in thinking.

"Disorientation of time and place, often getting lost in their own environment, misplacing things, declining ability to assess, personality changes, and loss of initiative," she noted.

The neurologist noted that dementia was divided into three stages, and it takes five to seven years for a person to experience the stage of heavy dementia.

"There are three stages that take five to seven years until the final stage. Hence, it would be nice to try to prevent (dementia) by leading a healthy lifestyle rather than treating," she noted//ANT

Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Tjahjo Kumolo. (ANTARA/HO-PR of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry) - 

Civil servants do not meet the criteria for receiving social assistance because they receive a steady income from the government, Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister (Menpan RB) Tjahjo Kumolo has said.

"Therefore, civil servants do not meet the criteria of social assistance (beneficiaries)," he said in a written statement received here on Saturday.

He made the statement in response to Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini disclosing data showing that 31,624 state civil servants have received government assistance.

Speaking on the sanctions that the civil servants will face, he said a more in-depth investigation is needed to find out whether or not they intentionally committed fraud or abused their authority to include themselves as social assistance recipients.

If it is proved that the civil servants committed fraudulent acts, then they can be given disciplinary punishment, in accordance with Government Regulation Number 94 of 2021 concerning Discipline of Civil Servants, he added.

In addition, he said, it is necessary for regional governments or related parties to review the mechanism for determining data on social assistance recipients so that those who are truly eligible to become assistance beneficiaries can be validated and verified.

Based on Presidential Regulation Number 63 of 2017 concerning the Distribution of Cashless Social Assistance, recipients of social assistance must be persons, families, groups, or poor communities who are poor or vulnerable to social risks, he pointed out.

Earlier, Minister Rismaharini had revealed that around 31 thousand civil servants (ASN) were indicated to have received social assistance from the Social Affairs Ministry under the Family Hope Recipient Program (PKH) and Non-Cash Food Assistance (BPNT).

As many as 28,965 people out of the total 31,624 recipients were active civil servants, while the rest were retirees who did not fall in the group eligible for receiving social assistance, she said//ANT

Police officers check the vaccination status of visitors during a patrol at a Christmas market in Vienna on Nov 19, 2021. (File photo: AP/Lisa Leutner) - 

Thousands of protesters were expected to gather in Vienna on Saturday (Nov 20) after the Austrian government announced a nationwide lockdown to contain the quickly rising COVID-19 infection numbers in the country.

The far-right opposition Freedom Party is among those who have called for the protest, and vowed to combat the new restrictions.

Demonstrations against virus measures are also expected in other European countries including Switzerland, Croatia and Italy.

On Friday night, Dutch police opened fire on protesters, and seven people were injured in rioting that erupted in downtown Rotterdam around a demonstration against COVID-19 restrictions.

The Austrian lockdown will start early on Monday and initially will last for 10 days, and will then be reevaluated. At the most, it will last 20 days.

Most stores will close, and cultural events will be cancelled. People will be able to leave their homes only for certain specific reasons, including buying groceries, going to the doctor or exercising.

The Austrian government also said that the country will make vaccinations mandatory from Feb 1 next year.

Vaccinations in Austria have plateaued at one of the lowest rates in Western Europe, and hospitals in heavily hit states have warned that their intensive care units are reaching capacity. Average daily deaths have tripled in recent weeks.

About 66 per cent of Austria’s 8.9 million people are fully vaccinated, according to government figures.

Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg apologised to all vaccinated people on Friday night saying it wasn't fair that they had to suffer under the renewed lockdown restrictions when they had done everything to help contain the virus.

“I’m sorry to take this drastic step,” he said on public broadcaster ORF.

Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl, who announced earlier this week that he had tested positive for COVID-19, referred to the measures as “dictatorship”. Kickl must self-isolate for 14 days, so he won’t be able to attend the Vienna protest//CNA

The Vinpearl leisure complex in Phu Quoc boasts a 12,000-room hotel complex, an amusement park, an 18-hole golf course, a casino, a safari park and a miniature Venice (Photo: AFP/Nhac Nguyen) - 

Tour guide Lai Chi Phuc has been counting down the days until travellers return to the white-sand beaches and thick tropical jungle of Vietnam's Phu Quoc, a once-poor fishing island pushing to be Asia's next holiday hotspot as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions ease.

On Saturday (Nov 20), around 200 South Koreans touched down on the island, which lies a few kilometres off Cambodia in the azure waters of the Gulf of Thailand, after a vaccine passport scheme kicked off this month in Vietnam.

Among the arrivals was Tae Hyeong Lee, who was returning to the island for a third time and keen to make a beeline for the beach.

"It's wonderful to be here. This is my first time travelling out of South Korea since the pandemic started," he told AFP.

But others may skip the lazy beach break in favour of action and entertainment as they shuffle between a 12,000-room hotel complex, an amusement park, an 18-hole golf course, a casino, a safari park and a miniature Venice.

The US$2.8-billion leisure resort, part of the "sleepless city" model, opened six months ago as COVID-19 ravaged tourism across the world - and as other Asian countries reliant on the industry, like Thailand, were rethinking their mass tourism frameworks.

For 33-year-old Phuc, who remembers a poverty-stricken childhood where "everyone wanted to escape Phu Quoc", the island's growing popularity gave him a way to return home after years of scratching out a living as a salesman in the nearby cities of the Mekong Delta.

"But it's a pity also," he told AFP, lamenting the loss of the island's palm-fringed beaches to resorts.

Ahead of Saturday's reopening, staff at Vinpearl resort - where the arrivals are staying - swept beaches, arranged cutlery on tables and laid out sunbeds. Others busied themselves painting delicate flowers on conical hats.

"When we heard visitors were coming back, I was just so excited," said duty manager Ngo Thi Bich Thuong.

Before the pandemic in 2019, around 5 million people, including half a million foreigners - mostly from China, South Korea, Japan and Russia - holidayed on Phu Quoc.

Vingroup - the enormously powerful conglomerate behind the new complex - is pushing to make the island "a new international destination on the world tourist map".

To cater for the tourist boom, 40,000 hotel rooms have been built and planned, vice chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board Ken Atkinson told AFP - "that's more hotel keys than they have in Sydney, Australia".

Globally popular vacation spots such as Thailand's Phuket have given Vietnam something to aim for.

Atkinson took a group of senior Vietnamese government officials there in 2005 - but while Phuket's vibrant international tourist scene took years to build up, "Vietnam has a tendency of wanting to do everything all at once", he noted.

"Unfortunately I don't think there was enough attention given to what would be in the long-term benefit of the island," he added.

Phu Quoc is a UNESCO biosphere reserve - surrounding waters are stuffed with coral reefs, and its beaches were once nesting spots for hawksbill and green turtles.

But no nesting has taken place in recent years, the United Nations body said in their last assessment in 2018.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has warned of "an almost unimaginable flood of plastic" that chokes rivers, canals and sea life.

Around 160 tonnes of trash - almost enough to fill 16 trucks - is generated every day, according to WWF, which says that the island's waste management is not fit to cope with the tourism explosion.

"More and more tourists are very conscious of the environment. They don't want to be going to places where beaches are littered or where effluent is going into the sea," Atkinson warned.

But alongside the trash, and the garish headline attractions - including the world's longest non-stop three-rope cable car and Vietnam's first teddy bear museum - there are still pockets of paradise.

Chu Dinh Duc, 26, from mainland Vietnam, first saw Phu Quoc from the back of a motorbike in 2017.

Speeding through dense forests and winding his way to the few remaining sleepy villages where fishermen cast their nets into the ocean as the sun came up, he fell in love.

Two years later, he opened a simple homestay business catering to foreigners.

"My goal here is not to take a lot of their money," he said. "But I want as many as possible to come."

"If Phu Quoc remained undeveloped, it would just be a pearl undiscovered."//CNA