PURPOSE: In Japan, about 80% of deaths occur in hospitals, especially long-term care beds. The purpose of this study was to clarify the nursing practices used for such older patients at the end-of-life stage in long-termcare wards via the modified grounded theory approach (M-GTA). METHODS: Data were obtained through semi-structured interviews of nineteen nurses working in cooperating long-term care wards, acute care wards, or hospice services (to allow for constant comparison between these types of wards) in western Japan in 2014. We analyzed the transcribed data using M-GTA. RESULTS: The core category that emerged from the analysis was “Balancing enhancement of patients' daily life quality and life-sustaining care in the face of uncertainty about the patients' character.” Eleven categories emerged, such as Seeking older patients' character with their family, Supporting families' decision making, Rebuilding patients' daily life in the ward, and Sustaining patients' life span through medical care. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses experienced uncertainty about the care needs of older patients, the ethical problems of Enhancing the patients' QOL by using risky care, and the evaluation criteria used to judge their own nursing care after the patients' death. All nurses had the goal of ensuring a natural death for all patients. Nurses' acceptance and evaluation of their own care was critically influenced by the patient's family's responses to their care after patients' death. Further research is necessary to develop evaluation criteria and educational programs for end-of-life nursing care of older adults.
Adult ; Decision Making ; Grounded Theory ; Hospices ; Humans ; Japan* ; Long-Term Care* ; Nursing ; Nursing Care ; Qualitative Research ; Quality of Life* ; Terminal Care ; Uncertainty

PURPOSE: The goal of this paper is to present the design and performance of a position encoding circuit for 16 x 16 array of position sensitive multi-anode photomultiplier tube for small animal PET scanners. This circuit which reduces the number of readout channels from 256 to 4 channels is based on a charge division method utilizing a resistor array. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The position encoding circuit was simulated with PSpice before fabrication. The position encoding circuit reads out the signals from H9500 flat panel PMTs (Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Japan) on which 1.5 x 1.5 x 7.0 mm3 L0.9GSO (Lu1.8Gd0.2SiO5:Ce) crystals were mounted. For coincidence detection, two different PET modules were used. One PET module consisted of a 29 x 29 L0.9GSO crystal layer, and the other PET module two 28 x 28 and 29 x 29 L0.9GSO crystal layers which have relative offsets by half a crystal pitch in x- and y-directions. The crystal mapping algorithm was also developed to identify crystals. RESULTS: Each crystal was clearly visible in flood images. The crystal identification capability was enhanced further by changing the values of resistors near the edge of the resistor array. Energy resolutions of individual crystal were about 11.6%(SD 1.6). The flood images were segmented well with the proposed crystal mapping algorithm. CONCLUSION: The position encoding circuit resulted in a clear separation of crystals and sufficient energy resolutions with H9500 flat-panel PMT and L0.9GSO crystals. This circuit is good enough for use in small animal PET scanners.
Animals ; Estrenes ; Fees and Charges ; Optics and Photonics ; Pyridinium Compounds

Objective: Lymph node recurrence is extremely rare in cases of stage IA1 squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the uterine cervix without lymphovascular space invasion (LVSI). We present two cases of extraregional lymph node recurrence after initial surgery for stage IA1 SCC of the uterine cervix without LVSI.Patients: Both patients initially underwent hysterectomy and developed recurrent extraregional lymph nodes within a few years postoperatively.Case 1: The patient showed no symptoms of recurrence, and follow-up computed tomography (CT) for evaluation of gallstones revealed a para-aortic lymph node (9 mm). The patient subsequently underwent serum SCC antigen testing and CT and was diagnosed with recurrence.Case 2: The patient noticed a right inguinal node swelling, which was evaluated using CT. Both patients survived without relapse for 8 and 4 years, respectively.Conclusion: Although stage IA1 SCC of the uterine cervix without LVSI is associated with a low risk of lymph node recurrence, oncologists should consider the possibility of recurrence in such cases. Evaluation for recurrence is difficult in asymptomatic patients. Serum SCC antigen testing may be a useful biochemical marker before imaging for early detection of recurrence, even in asymptomatic patients.