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Skin-to-skin contact (SSC) between a parent and their baby is a commonly used intervention in Neonatal Intensive Special Care Units (NISC). It can help parents to feel more connected to their baby, and feel attached and bonded, as well as help them to feel like they are interacting with their newborn baby, and helping them to feel a little more like a "normal" parent. It also offers multiple benefits to the baby and is the closest for them to being back inside their mother's stomach, as they were before being born. They can hear their mother's heart beat and know their smell, so it can offer the baby comfort and warmth and feel love from their parent. Over recent years, there has been an increased focus on the use of family centred-care interventions, such as SSC, being utilised in NISCs. However, there is an overall lack of studies conducted in Australia on the effect that the duration of the SSC between a parent and baby in a NISC setting has on physiological benefits to the baby, as well as physiological benefits to the parents (both mothers and fathers). The physiological measurements examined in the current study are the baby's heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature and oxygen saturation. The parent's physiological measurements examined in the current study are the parent's heart rate and blood pressure. For the current study, it is hypothesized that the effects from the SSC for the baby will be increased when they have longer SSC with their parent. For the parents, it is hypothesized that there will be physiological benefits from the SSC with their baby, reflected as lower heart rate and blood pressure, and that these benefits will increase with a longer duration of SSC.

This project is a pilot study of an intervention program called Body Brain Life-Fit (BBL-Fit). BBL-Fit aims to determine the effect of a multi-domain dementia risk reduction intervention on cognitive function in community dwelling middle-aged adults with multiple risk factors for dementia. The sample will be healthy but have several risk factors for dementia. The intervention is tailored to individuals based on their level of risk in particular domains. There will be two groups; a control group who receives a pre and post assessment without interventions, and an intervention group who receive online intervention as well as physical activity and dietary (where indicated) interventions.

The primary objective of the project is to determine the effectiveness of a treatment program combining serial casting with Botulinum Toxin for the management of contractures in adults with acquired brain injury. An assessor blinded, randomised controlled study with a cross-over design will be conducted. Ankle joint is selected as a model to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. Participants will be adults with acquired brain injury admitted to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit of Royal Rehab for sub-acute rehabilitation. Between-group comparisons will be made to determine the effectiveness of the intervention program. The participants in the control group will be placed on a wait list for the same treatment program. Pre-and post-intervention comparisons will also be made within the control group. Follow-up assessments for both the experimental group and control group will be conducted 8 weeks post interventions, at discharge and if possible 1 year after discharge to assess the long-term effects of the interventions.

A randomised controlled trial will be used to investigate the effectiveness of the iMindTime eHealth program. The iMindTime program will be placed within the Federation eHealth Platform. People visiting the website, in response to advertisements or through self interest, will be informed of the availability of the iMindTime program and invited to participate in the study. People who consent to take part in the study will be randomly allocated to either an immediate access to the program, or delayed access (7 week delay). The iMindTime eHealth program consists of six brief sessions, over 3 weeks, designed to make an individual more mindful or increase awareness of moment-to-moment experiences (e.g., thoughts, feelings, sensations) and simply accepting what is there without wanting it to change in any way. Participants will spend three days on each session before moving onto the next session. Each session will require 5-10 minutes to read and its user friendly and interactive components are designed to keep the user engaged. To consolidate learning, participants will be given activities (10-20 minutes per day) to complete offline to practise the principles of specific mindfulness exercises (i.e., mindfulness of the breath, mindfulness of body sensations, mindfulness of emotions, mindfulness of sounds, mindfulness of thoughts and loving kindness meditation) and asked to provide simple feedback on this practise at the next session. Participants will also receive automated emails (e.g., to remind them to log on, when to complete post/follow-up questionnaires) and will be asked several questions during the study period to monitor their progress. Participants randomised to the iMindTime eHealth (immediate access) group will complete a pre-intervention assessment (Week 0), during intervention (Week 2) assessment, post-intervention assessment (Week 4) and a 1 month follow-up assessment (Week 8). Participants randomised to the delayed access group will complete the same assessment phases and will be given access to iMindTime eHealth program following the 1 month follow-up assessment (Week 8). However the delayed access group will be asked to complete the post intervention assessment after they have completed the iMindeHealth program (Week 11). It is expected that people who undertake iMindTime will show increases in mental wellbeing and optimism and reductions in negative affect at post and follow-up time points

Delirium is common in patients recovering from surgical procedures, particularly those involving major cardiac surgery. It is associated with numerous adverse consequences, including increased patient suffering, longer hospital stays, increased postoperative complications, increased mortality and poorer cognitive outcomes. Current strategies are only modestly effective in treating delirium and the cornerstone of management is prevention, however even best practice multifactorial interventions only result in a modest reduction in delirium incidence. Melatonin is a naturally occurring compound that is important in the regulation of sleep. Melatonin metabolism dysregulation has been implicated in the development of delirium, although only sparse evidence about its possible role in delirium prevention exists. The main aim of this randomised, placebo-controlled, double blind clinical trial is to determine if 3mg melatonin can reduce the incidence, severity and complications of delirium following cardiac surgery. We plan to enrol 210 participants due to undergo elective cardiac surgery. Participants will be randomly allocated to melatonin 3mg or matching placebo for 7 days beginning two nights prior to the scheduled surgery. We are primarily interested in whether those given melatonin have a lower rate of new-onset delirium but will also be interested to see if they experience less delirious symptoms, less depression and anxiety, less cognitive impairment, require less medications during their admission (especially sedative medications) and have shorter stays in hospital and ICU. Melatonin is safe, inexpensive and readily available and thus offers a potentially simple, cost effective intervention suitable for use in routine clinical practice.

The primary purpose of this study is to determine the efficacy and safety of carfilzomib-thalidomide-dexamethasone (CarTD) therapy for relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) patients. Who is it for? You may be eligible to join this study if you are aged over 18 years, have RRMM and have received between one and three lines of therapy previously. Study details The study will recruit participants in Australia and Singapore. All participants will receive 12 x 4-week cycles of CarTD therapy followed by 6 cycles of carfilzomib-dexamethasone only. The first 10 participants recruited in each country will receive a low dose for their first 3 cycles. Depending on the toxicity observed in these participants' first 2 cycles, a higher dose may then be used for their remaining cycles (cycle 4 onwards) and for all cycles in newly recruited participants. Patients will be monitored for myeloma response and safety and tolerability of CarTD therapy using blood samples and by reviewing adverse events that occur as well as for disease progression and survival information for 1 year following the last patients final cycle of treatment. It is hoped that the findings of this trial will provide an evaluation of the efficacy and safety of CarTD therapy in RRMM patients who have relapsed after prior treatment for multiple myeloma.

This proposal aims to establish the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and student experience of simulation training for the prevention of falls amongst hospitalised inpatients. This will be undertaken through established undergraduate placements of Monash University health professional students across Peninsula Health acute and subacute inpatient wards. The research team comprises of leaders in interprofessional education (IPE), simulated learning, health economics and falls prevention from Monash University, Monash Health and Peninsula Health. Prevention of falls is an Australian quality and safety priority particularly within health care services. Peninsula Health provides various types of training for employed health care staff and has systems in place for managing falls risk and monitoring falls incidents. There is little education about falls prevention strategies provided to undergraduate health professional students, either during university subjects or on orientation to Peninsula Health. Simulation learning provides the ideal environments for teaching high and low fidelity tasks with students. Falls prevention is the responsibility of all health care professionals therefore is an ideal test case within Peninsula Health for a simulated interprofessional learning package. The research team will conduct a cluster, cross-over randomised controlled trial with a concurrent economic evaluation (cost per fall prevented). It will target the health professional (medical, nursing and allied health) undergraduate students who enter Peninsula Health for placement over 2015/2016. The intervention will include the use of an evidence based simulation training program with three modules targeting falls prevention strategies with the patient with delirium, the patient with dementia and the patient with risk taking behaviours without delirium or dementia. The primary outcome of this research will be measured falls (patients) across inpatient facilities with secondary outcomes including satisfaction with the simulation learning environment, knowledge gain, ward-level practice change and cost of acute / rehabilitation care for each patient measured using clinical costing data.

Our extant research has indicated that intrapersonal factors (e.g., coping and thinking) are related to poor mental health in people with low vision. In this study, we will build on past trials in this area and examine the effectiveness of an adapted guided self-help programme on depressive symptoms. Our programme will include “third-wave” cognitive-and-behavioural treatment (CBT) components as a modern approach to treat the factors we found in our previous research. We will examine whether participants with low vision and depressive symptoms who receive the acceptance-focussed CBT programme show reduced depressive symptomatology (primary outcome), changes in coping, thinking, and quality-of-life (secondary outcomes) after the intervention compared to a treatment as usual group that includes a referral to the patients GP. This project has two phases. Phase 1 involves conducting a pilot randomised-controlled trial (RCT) to determine the impact of the programme of interest. Phase 2 involves a participant evaluation of programme content, format, and delivery to guide further refinement. The intervention will be conducted by Dr BA Sturrock who has substantial experience in both clinical and research intervention. She has trained practitioners in CBT intervention previously in a research setting and practices acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) regularly in a private practice setting. The guided self-help programme that we have adapted is made up of six modules designed to be used each week, in addition to three face-to-face visits and three telephone contacts of up to 50 minutes in duration. The six modules are: (1) Understanding emotional well-being in vision impairment, (2) Being present, (3) Doing what matters, (4) Opening up, (5) Effective communication, and (6) Wellness planning. Following intervention, participant views will be gathered on the programme content, convenience, delivery, participant-therapist relationship, and impact.

The proposed PhD study will involve the development and pilot testing of Tuning Relationships with Music (TRM), a new systemic intervention that aims to help parents with a history of childhood interpersonal trauma and their adolescent children (10-18 years) improve the quality of their relationship. Parents with a trauma history often struggle to connect to their children. Adolescent behaviour can trigger unresolved trauma memories for a parent, resulting in an escalation of conflictual parent-child interactions which may compromise a young person’s development, leading to problems with emotional and social functioning, and mental health difficulties. Therefore it is important to intervene early with families with these risk factors in order to prevent the emergence of problems and strengthen the parent-child relationship, which has been found to play an important protective role in supporting optimal developmental outcomes for young people. TRM aims to use music as a vehicle to work directly with nonverbal maladaptive patterns of communication, to teach parents and teens how to recognise, interrupt and repair negative cycles of interaction, to learn responsive ways of relating, and to help parents use emotion coaching strategies to identify and empathically respond to their teen’s nonverbal and verbal expressions of emotion.

The Hospital in the Home (HITH) Service is a new model of care in Townsville Hospital and Health Service (THHS) whereby acute patients are treated in their own home by experienced nursing staff. This model of care has been employed at various locations across Australia and indeed the rest of the world for the past 25 years and has been established as a safe model of care with respect to patient morbidity and mortality. The current service provision model involves patients being visited up to three times per day by nursing staff to perform observations and provide wound care, IV antibiotics and physical review. In many instances a patient would only be visited once per day if they are physiologically stable. In comparison, admitted inpatients receive observations on average four times per day. This has implications for the perception of the quality of care provided under the HITH model by both patients and referring clinicians. In the literature there are many examples of the use of Telemedicine and tablet based Telemonitoring devices in the management of chronic diseases such as Diabetes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Congestive Cardiac Failure. There is a paucity of evidence for the use of this technology in the acute sphere such as that seen in HITH with only one article published reviewing outcomes in 41 patients. The goal of this project is to implement and evaluate the use of a wireless TGA approved home monitoring device into the HITH Service at The Townsville Hospital.