Multidisciplinary Lessons from Palliative Extubations at Home.

Most patients with serious illness prefer to die at home; however, for those requiring ongoing ventilatory support, this preference is often not honored due to the difficulties of arranging a palliative extubation at home. Here we present two cases of successful home palliative extubations, coordinated by a multidisciplinary team including critical care, palliative care, care management, hospice, and emergency medical services (EMS) clinicians. By exploring the operational and regulatory challenges accompanying these cases, we provide a road map for offering mechanically ventilated patients the choice of a death at home and provide truly holistic and patient-centered care.

A high-resolution 3D ultrasonic system for rapid evaluation of the anterior and posterior segment.

Background And Objective: Traditional ultrasound imaging systems for ophthalmology employ slow, mechanical scanning of a single-element ultrasound transducer. The goal was to demonstrate rapid examination of the anterior and posterior segment with a three-dimensional (3D) commercial ultrasound system incorporating high-resolution linear probe arrays.

Materials And Methods: The 3D images of the porcine eye were generated in approximately 10 seconds by scanning one of two commercial linear arrays (25- and 50-MHz).