Family Business: Living With Heart Disease; On Top Of My Game: Living With Diabetes; A Personal Challenge: Living With Arthritis

Using the same format, these three programs tell the personal stories of people who are trying to cope with various illnesses. In Family Business, we meet a middle-aged stockbroker who, in the wake of a heart attack, is trying to redesign his lifestyle. He and his wife argue about taking a plane trip with friends; he bickers with his kids during breakfast; he's seen fielding a slew of phone calls in a two-minute period while his boss stands waiting to talk to him. The guy is a walking pressure-cooker, and he's a perfectionist to boot. On the other side of the scale, we see a woman who is bright, happy, and easygoing. Yet, at 35, she's already suffered three heart attacks. In A Personal Challenge, we meet a young nurse who has had arthritis since the age of 13. She has recently had to give up her nursing job so that she could enter the hospital and have hip replacement surgery. Now she's living at home with a mother who is frightened and concerned. The mother, understandably, wants to help in any way she can. The daughter, though struggling with pain, wants to be self-reliant. And in On Top of My Game, we are introduced to a 31-year-old attorney who, determined to demonstrate that he was the master of his problem with diabetes, took a cross-country bike trip--collapsing along the way--but ultimately triumphant. Each of the tapes tells the stories of some half a dozen people, and the effects--both emotional and physical--on themselves as well as on their families. Difficult to classify, these programs are not how-to, though viewers with the same problems will learn from and probably empathize with many of the ways these families choose to deal with illness. On the other hand, they are not documentaries about the illnesses; rather the focus is on the people. Suitable for showing in a wide variety of settings, both educational and social, these tapes are highly recommended. (Available from: West Glen Communications, Inc., 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.)