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The risk of cardiomyopathy as a side-effect is related to the total dose of anthracycline given to a patient. Cardiomyopathy may in turn cause symptoms of heart failure such as shortness of breath, increased tiredness, swelling of your ankles, inability to keep up your usual level of activity. These symptoms may be serious and even permanent. Current practice is to ensure normal heart function before starting anthracycline therapy. This is done using one of two available techniques: echocardiogram or gated cardiac blood pool scan (GCBPS). An echocardiogram uses ultrasound whereas a GCBPS uses a radioactive isotope. Use of a radioactive isotope means exposure to a small amount of radiation and a small risk of allergic reaction to the isotope. Current practice is to repeat one of these two tests only if the patient later experiences any symptoms of heart failure. The aim of this study is to assess whether a newer technique using Tissue Doppler Imaging (TDI) is more sensitive in detecting early changes in heart function. The study also examines whether changes in specific blood tests (known as cardiac biomarkers) correlate more closely to changes in heart function as measured by TDI or as measured by echocardiogram.. The use of TDI measurement as a technique is not proven in the monitoring of patients that receive anthracycline therapy and so is investigational in nature. For the purposes of this study heart function for all patients will be measured using echocardiogram and TDI. This will be done as one procedure.

Vitamin D deficiency becomes more common in the older persons. Vitamin D have been proven to reduce falls. How this benefit is achieved is not clearly known. We suspect that Vitamin D supplementation enhances balance performance in the elderly persons who suffer falls.

This randomised controlled trial will determine whether a 12 week, outpatient, supervised exercise training program, followed by a home-based maintenance exercise program, is safe and improves exercise capacity and quality of life (QoL) in patients with PAH.

This project is part of a research program examining the efficacy of Internet based education and treatment programs for people with commmon mental disorders. This project examines the effectiveness of an education program for people with social phobia and/or panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia) and/or GAD. We expect that people in either immediate or delayed education groups to report similar benefit following the active component of their program.

The prognosis of metastatic and recurrent breast cancer remains poor. Systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy produces objective remission in a majority of cases, but the duration of such remissions is short. Early sequential studies suggested that a plateau may have been reached both in the proportion of patients achieving remission and in remission duration. Questions of interest concern optimal usage of existing agents, with particular reference to maintenance of quality of life during treatment. Experience from earlier protocols have indicated the unpopularity of maintaining high dosage Adriamycin containing combination chemotherapy until progressive disease or until maximum tolerable cumulative Adriamycin dosage. If similar control of disease could be obtained with an intermittent chemotherapy schedule, patients would enjoy periods without the side effects of chemotherapy, presumably to the improvement of their quality of life. This study was therefore designed to compare continuous chemotherapy, administered until disease progression, with intermittent therapy, whereby treatment is stopped after 3 cycles and then repeated for three more cycles only when there was evidence of disease progression.

The study is designed to assess the usefulness of ultrasound measurement of inferior vena cava:aorta diameter in assessing dehydration. Children with diabetic ketoacidosis are chosen because they are reliably dehydrated. Dehydration is being quantified by weight measurements at the same time as ultrasound assessment - upon admission and discharge.

Based on biological attribution theory it is hypothesised that the biological explanation for depression will lead to a greater decrease in young peoples’ anticipated self-stigma associated with depression than the other two conditions. It is further hypothesised that any decrease in self-stigma will lead to increased help-seeking intention (from a mental health professional) by these young people if they were to experience depression in the future.

The objectives of this trial are to determine whether a post donation 8 week course of 45 mg elemental carbonyl iron in females aged 18 -45: -is effective in replacing iron lost as a consequence of blood donation, - improves the donor’s eligibility to donate at their subsequent 3 monthly visit as determined by their capillary haemoglobin level, and is well tolerated

The primary objective of the project is to determine the benefit of using a bi-modal approach for treating and preventing contracture in adults with acquired brain injury. A multi-centre randomised controlled study with concealed allocation and assessor blinding will be conducted. In this study, the wrist is selected as a model to assess if a bi-modal programme (splinting and electrical stimulation) is more effective than usual care (splinting alone). The participants are people with acquired brain injury admitted to the rehabilitation units of Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney, Liverpool Hospital and Balmain hospital.

Physiotherapy improves a person’s balance and mobility. This project will compare the traditional ‘one-on-one’ model of physiotherapy with a workstations training model. With workstations, patients complete specifically designed activities at a number of stations. Each station will address a specific aspect such as strength, flexibility or balance. Workstations have been shown to be effective with chronic stroke patients, fallers and adults with cerebral palsy however to date there is no published research evaluating such an approach with hospital inpatients. This study will address the 2 questions: - Does a physiotherapy workstations training program result in improved balance and mobility in a post acute inpatient group - Is a physiotherapy workstations training program as effective as one on one physiotherapy intervention in improving balance and mobility in a post acute inpatient group?