As an American, I recently began extending visits to friends in Italy by meeting families providing "agriturismo." My Italian speaking wife Evi (Eveline Faure, MD, FCCP, a graduate of the Universita Italiana per Stranieri, Perugia) made this p- sible. During one visit in 1994, we were sitting around the table in Pisa with friends who were fellow critical care physicians. They were remarking how specialists needed more patients. We told them that we were going south beyond Naples, a concept which they could not understand, considering the beauty of Tuscany. We had a marvelous time in southern...

This book presents new insights and novel perspectives of Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT). It emphasizes the strategic value of developing technologies and innovative organizational models for the management of chronic respiratory patients needing LTOT.

Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) usually represents the final step in the management of severe chronic respiratory diseases: a large proportion of patients suffering from these conditions is involved and the corresponding impact for the Health Institutions and the Society is dramatically increasing. Although LTOT is well known and widely used since long ago in most modern countries, it still represents a challenging topic due to the huge amount of variables which can affect both its efficacy and effectiveness. Unfortunately, patients, doctors, care-givers, together with health institutions and...