Towards single-photon Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry.

We investigate a novel distributed Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer (BOTDR) using standard telecommunication fibers based on single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) in gated mode, ν -BOTDR, with a range of 120 km and 10 m spatial resolution. We experimentally demonstrate the ability to perform a distributed temperature measurement, by detecting a hot spot at 100 km. Instead of using a frequency scan like conventional BOTDR, we use a frequency discriminator based on the slope of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) to convert the count rate of the SPAD into a frequency shift.

A Biopsychosocial Evaluation of Post-Acute Outcome of Patients with Severe Brain Lesions Recovering from Coma: An Exploratory Study.

Currently, very little is known about the holistic outcome of patients recovering from coma. The aim of this retrospective exploratory study was to evaluate the outcomes of patients recovering from coma after care in an acute neurorehabilitation unit with particular focus on their biopsychosocial and spiritual needs in the post-acute phase of recovery. We included 12 patients and evaluated clinical outcome evolution by comparing standard neurobehavioral scores from patient files measured in the acute and post-acute phases.

Wish to Die Among Residents of Swiss Long-Term Care Facilities: A Multisite Cross-Sectional Study.

Objectives: The wish to die (WTD) in persons near the end of life is a clinically important, ethically and practically complex phenomenon as demonstrated by the intense debates on assisted dying legislation around the world. Despite global aging and increasing institutionalization in old age, WTD among residents of long-term care facilities (LTCF) is underexplored. We aimed to assess the prevalence of WTD and identify its predictors in older LTCF residents.

Cancellation of reference update-induced 1/f noise in a chirped-pulse DAS.

Distributed acoustic sensors (DAS) perform distributed and dynamic strain or temperature change measurements by comparing a measured time-domain trace with a previous fiber reference state. Large strain or temperature fluctuations or laser frequency noise impose the need to update such a reference, making it necessary to integrate the short-term variation measurements if absolute strain or temperature variations are to be obtained. This has the drawback of introducing a 1/f noise component, as noise is integrated with each cumulative variation measurement, which is detrimental to the determination of very slow processes (i.

Long-distance distributed pressure sensing based on frequency-scanned phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry.

In this paper, a long-distance distributed pressure sensing system based on a special fiber and using frequency-scanned phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry is proposed. The fiber shows high pressure sensitivity (159 MHz/bar) and low loss (3 dB/km) owing to its simple structure made of two large air holes in the cladding. The pressure response of the two orthogonal polarization axes of the fiber is explored distinctively.

Wish to Die in Older Patients: Development and Validation of Two Assessment Instruments.

Objectives: The wish to die may be different in geriatric patients than in younger terminally ill patients. This study aimed to develop and validate instruments for assessing the wish to die in geriatric patients.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

What Motivates Healthcare Professionals' Referrals to Chaplains, and How to Help Them Formulate Referrals that Accurately Reflect Patients' Spiritual Needs?

As many hospitals lack standardized referral protocols for spiritual care, healthcare professionals' perceptions and preferences play an important role in their decisions to refer patients to chaplains. To better understand what motivates these professionals to refer patients and how they approach spiritual care, this article examines referral requests from twelve healthcare professionals to a chaplain at the Lausanne University Hospital Department of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. Comparative discourse analysis highlights that requests are largely driven by difficulties in patient-professional relationships.

Experiences of newly diagnosed cancer patients in confronting the finitudes of life: a qualitative systematic review protocol.

What is the experience of newly diagnosed patients with cancer when facing the finitude of life and undergoing initial anti-cancer treatment?

Factors associated with quality of life in elderly hospitalised patients undergoing post-acute rehabilitation: a cross-sectional analytical study in Switzerland.

Objectives: We investigated whether biopsychosocial and spiritual factors and satisfaction with care were associated with patients' perceived quality of life.

Design: This was a cross-sectional analytical study.

Setting: Data were collected from inpatients at a postacute geriatric rehabilitation centre in a university hospital in Switzerland.

Validation of the Spiritual Distress Assessment Tool in older hospitalized patients.

Background: The Spiritual Distress Assessment Tool (SDAT) is a 5-item instrument developed to assess unmet spiritual needs in hospitalized elderly patients and to determine the presence of spiritual distress. The objective of this study was to investigate the SDAT psychometric properties.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed in a Geriatric Rehabilitation Unit.

Instruments measuring spirituality in clinical research: a systematic review.

Introduction: Numerous instruments have been developed to assess spirituality and measure its association with health outcomes. This study's aims were to identify instruments used in clinical research that measure spirituality; to propose a classification of these instruments; and to identify those instruments that could provide information on the need for spiritual intervention.

Methods: A systematic literature search in MEDLINE, CINHAL, PsycINFO, ATLA, and EMBASE databases, using the terms "spirituality" and "adult$," and limited to journal articles was performed to identify clinical studies that used a spiritual assessment instrument.

The spiritual distress assessment tool: an instrument to assess spiritual distress in hospitalised elderly persons.

Background: Although spirituality is usually considered a positive resource for coping with illness, spiritual distress may have a negative influence on health outcomes. Tools are needed to identify spiritual distress in clinical practice and subsequently address identified needs. This study describes the first steps in the development of a clinically acceptable instrument to assess spiritual distress in hospitalized elderly patients.

Polarisation and wavelength division multiplexing at 1.55 mum for bandwidth enhancement of multimode fibre based access networks.

We demonstrate how a combination of polarisation-division multiplexing (PDM) and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) applied to graded index 50 mum multimode fibres (MMF) at 1.55 mum can be used to greatly increase the available optical bandwidth. A proof of principle experiment demonstrated error-free data transmission over 3km of MMF, using two 100GHz-spaced wavelengths, each carrying two 2.

Experimental demonstration of cascaded AWG access network featuring bi-directional transmission and polarization multiplexing.

We present the first experimental demonstration of a bidirectional cascaded arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) access network combining one NxN AWG in the central office with multiple 1xN AWG's at the distribution points, such as to individually address N(2) users with only N wavelengths. Downstream and upstream data share the same optical path. BER curves were measured using 2.

Polarimetric fiber laser sensor for hydrostatic pressure.

A polarimetric Fabry-Perot fiber laser sensor for fluid pressure up to 100 MPa is investigated. The fluid acts on one of two elliptical-core fiber sections in the laser cavity, producing a shift in the differential phase of the two orthogonal polarization modes and thus a variation in the beat frequencies of the corresponding longitudinal laser modes. The second fiber section, with a 90 degrees offset in the core orientation, compensates for temperature-induced phase shifts.

C-band polarisation orthogonality preservation in 5Gb/s, 50microm multimode fibre links up to 3km.

We have investigated the polarisation-maintenance capability of 50microm graded-index multimode fibres (MMF) in the Cband. Using both circularly, and linearly polarisation-multiplexed signals centre-launched into the MMF, we found that orthogonality is sufficiently maintained in both cases to yield typically 10dB optical isolation between the channels.Using orthogonally circular polarisationmultiplexed signals, we show experimentally that two 3 and 5Gb/s data channels may be transmitted error free over 50microm multimode fibre spans up to 3km in length.