[Evaluation of family function in home care].

Quantitative and qualitative analyses of a caring family are needed to improve home care. We propose a three-dimensional quantitative evaluation of family functioning. The first dimension is food, clothing, and shelter; the second dimension is patient, medical, and caring conditions; and the third dimension is the caring family condition. We used the home care score and Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale at Kwansei Gakuin(FACESKG)IV for the quantitative evaluation of family functioning. Narrative medicine and ethnography are valuable for the qualitative evaluation of a caring family.

[2 cases of successful symptom management at home by using opioid rotation from a fentanyl preparation to a continuous subcutaneous injection of morphine hydrochloride, at a dose less than the equivalent dose based on the conversion table].

We report our experiences of 2 cases of successful pain management at home by using opioid rotation from a fentanyl preparation to a continuous subcutaneous injection of morphine hydrochloride, at a dose less than the equivalent dose based on the conversion table. Our experiences also suggested that opioid rotation according to the conversion ratios might be associated with the risk of delay in the detection of adverse reactions to opioid overdose in patients under home care, whose conditions cannot be checked frequently by health care providers.

Pseudophase information from the complex analytic signal of speckle fields and its applications. Part I: microdisplacement observation based on phase-only correlation in the signal domain.

As an alternative to the intensity correlation used in conventional speckle metrology, we propose a new technique for displacement observation that is based on spatial-signal-domain phase-only correlation and that makes use of the pseudophase of the complex analytic signal generated from a Hilbert-filtered speckle pattern. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate the validity and the advantage of the proposed signal-domain phase-only correlation technique over both the conventional intensity correlation technique and the spatial-frequency-domain phase-only correlation technique.

Pseudophase information from the complex analytic signal of speckle fields and its applications. Part II: statistical properties of the analytic signal of a white-light speckle pattern applied to the microdisplacement measurement.

To provide a theoretical background for the superiority of the signal-domain phase-only correlation (SDPOC) technique proposed here for microdisplacement measurement, we study the first- and the second-order statistical properties of the complex amplitude of an analytic signal of a white-light speckle pattern, under the assumption of a Gaussian random process, and give a formula for the autocorrelation function of the pseudophase associated with the complex analytic signal. Based on these results, we show mathematically that SDPOC has a performance advantage over conventional intensity-based correlation techniques.