ANZCTR search results

The primary purpose of the study is to investigate vitamin D and health in people with chronic kidney disease who are using peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis. As part of the study we want to find out whether people using peritoneal dialysis have low vitamin D levels in their blood and how much vitamin D they get from food and sunlight exposure. We also want to find out whether low vitamin D is related to adverse health outcomes. Study hypotheses (alternative hypotheses) 1) Low intake of vitamin D & exposure to sunlight will be associated with low blood levels of vitamin D 2) Low blood levels of vitamin D will be associated with adverse health outcomes

This study aims to improve the nutrition and physical activity behaviours of mothers with young children.

Bacopa Monnieri (BM) was first defined as a phytochemical brain tonic and touted to have the ability to improve memory, learning, and concentration for 3000 years (Zhou et al., 2007). Bacopa of late has had the statistical backing to support its cognitive enhancing capabilities (Calabrese et al., 2008) and since these findings BM has been trialled in a number of different settings offering new insights to its cognitive and physiological benefits. Investigations using BM on the response of elderly subjects uncovered significant cognitive improvements and a complete tolerability of the herb over a 12-week study (Calabrese et al. 2008). Elderly participants significantly improved their performance on learning tests and stroop tasks and showed decreases in Center for Epidemiologic Studies Short Depression Scale (CESD-10) depression scores and State-Trait Anxiety Indicator scores (STAI) scores. These studies allow us to hypothesize that cognitive improvements with the use of BM made after the age of 65 indicate its possible effectiveness on age related disorder (Calabrese et al. 2008; Barbhaiya et al.'s 2008). No study has reported any adverse events that weren’t also experienced by placebo groups, indicating a high tolerability of the drug among healthy human subjects. Furthermore using animal models, BM has been implicated in the amelioration of vascular dysfunction (Dar and Channa 1997), the decreased accumulation of beta-amyloid-42 (Holcomb et al. 2006) and acetylcholinesterase (Das et al. 2002), decreased levels of cholesterol (Anbarasi et al., 2005), and increased the activity of free radicals (Bhattacharya et al. 2000; Dhanasekaran et al. 2007) lessening the impact of oxidative stress associated with ageing and Alzheimer’s Dementia. The study will be an acute double blind, placebo controlled, crossover design investigating stress levels, cardiovascular effects, aortic elasticity, and cognitive function in an older adult population. Participants are required to attend testing sessions on three occasions; one practice day and two subsequent testing days separated by a seven day washout period. On the first of the testing days the participants will be randomly assigned to either placebo or treatment group and will then crossover groups on the second testing day. Each testing day will consist of a battery of tests, followed by the administration of the drug and a two hour wait period, followed by a second round of battery testing. The results of both pre-treatment and post-treatment testing will be compared using a repeated measures analysis of variance contrasting both groups in each condition over several testing periods.

Schools within a within 50km of Melbourne may be invited to participate.

People with complete quadriplegia commonly report sleep disturbances and have been found to lack melatonin production, a hormone that modulates our sleep cycle. It is unclear if their sleep problems are related to their lack of melatonin production. The aim of this study was to investigate whether nightly supplementation of 3mg melatonin would induce, shift the phase of and/or modify subjective sleep for people with complete quadriplegia. It is hypothesised that supplementation with melatonin will improve subjective sleep for people with complete quadriplegia along with their sleep phasing, quality of life and autonomic functioning.

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) have difficulty with mobility due to increased muscle tone (spasticity) and weakness in their legs. In recent years, botulinum toxin type A (BoNT-A, or botox) has been used to treat muscle spasticity, providing an opportunity for physiotherapy to improve walking ability and endurance. Current research findings suggest that the effect of botox can be increased by making sure that injected muscles are actively contracting at the time of injection. If this theory is correct, strategies which “activate” the injected muscle may play a vital role in making the most of a given botox treatment. This project will test this theory by comparing 2 groups of children who receive botox; one group will also receive electrical stimulation to the affected calf muscle at the time of the botox injection, and the other group will only receive the injection. Both groups will then receive standard post-injection physiotherapy. The two groups will then have their walking ability assessed using specialised gait analysis. This project has the potential to improve the effects of botox treatment for all children who are injected.

We are conducting a study of a potential treatment (Alpha-Stim:Registered Trademark) for pain associated with fibromyalgia. We are looking for people who have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia who are willing to trial the Alpha-Stim: Registered Trademark Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation (CES) device daily over a six week period. If you do agree to participate, you will be required to attend the laboratory at Deakin Burwood Campus for three 2 hour sessions within the 6 week period of the study. The first of these sessions will be held before your first 3 weeks of CES treatment, the second after the first 3 weeks, and the third at the conclusion of your treatment. During each of these sessions, we will be measuring your levels of pain, anxiety, depression and quality of sleep using certain tests. You will be asked to fill out some questionnaires to establish the severity and impact of your symptoms. These questionnaires should take about 20 minutes to complete. We will seek information such as your age, gender and the length of time you have suffered from fibromyalgia. Pain will be measured using a device which applies light pressure to parts of the body, and a visual analogue scale, which is a questionnaire asking for your level of agreement with certain statements about your pain. We will also measure some psychological and cognitive attributes. The tests being used are all standardized clinical measures and will be used to assess you at baseline (pre-treatment), in the middle of the 6 weeks and then again at the conclusion of the 6 week period (post-treatment).

The purpose of this project is to test the usefulness of a parenting program in reducing and/or preventing behaviour problems and improving metabolic control in children who have developed diabetes in the past couple of years. If the program is helpful, we hope that this will improve the emotional and physical wellbeing of these children in the future. Previous research has shown that children who have behaviour problems before, or soon after they develop diabetes, are at an increased risk for ongoing emotional difficulties, as well as being more likely to have poorly controlled diabetes. We plan to invite the families of children who have diabetes and behaviour problems to take part in this project. Half of these families will be offered a parenting program and the other half will receive the standard care from the Diabetes Clinic. We are also interested in finding out whether this parenting program may prevent behaviour problems developing in the future. We also plan to invite families of children who have diabetes and do not have behaviour problems to take part. Half the families will take part in the parenting program and half will receive the standard care. This will allow us to see whether the parenting program can prevent the development of behaviour problems in children who do not have problems at the moment. We are hoping 80 families will take part in this project.

Preliminary evidence has driven the development of an innovative treatment for early stuttering, called the Westmead Program. The treatment involves training children to practice a speech pattern known as syllable timed speech (STS) with their parents, daily. STS involves speaking with equal stress attached to each syllable and it is the best known means to control stuttering in a laboratory context. The current best practice treatment, the Lidcombe Program, has been replicated in randomised controlled trials; however, it does require considerable resources from families and clinicians. The purpose of investigating innovative treatments for early stuttering is to provide users with effective alternate approaches that have the potential to improve health care efficiency and client care. Accordingly, the primary aim of this study is to evaluate whether the experimental treatment is at least as efficacious as the standard treatment.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effect of triple combination anti viral drug (TCAD) in influenza infection in immunocompromised subjects. TCAD may potentially produce a greater reduction in viral load in these subjects and potentially block drug resistance therefore reducing morbidity in influenza A infection in immunocompromised subjects.