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You are invited to participate in a study to assess the effectiveness of nitrate patches in decreasing voiding problems and improving urine flow in men who have prostate enlargement. By being involved in this study you will play a very important role in the development of alternative medical treatments for this very common male problem. It will allow better and cheaper ways to relieve the symptoms without the need for surgery. The prostate is a chestnut size gland that lies under the bladder. The tube that urine flows through (the urethra) passes through the prostate. Not uncommonly, the urethra is blocked in older males due to prostate enlargement. This results in troubling voiding symptoms known as lower urinary tract symptoms. These include: - Slowness initiating urine flow. - Poor urine stream. - Straining to urinate. - Dribbling urine especially at the end of voiding. - Feeling the bladder is not completely empty after voiding. - Getting frequent and sudden urges to urinate but only passing small amounts. - Waking up many times at night to pass urine. The enlarged prostate has a muscular component, which contributes to the blockage of urine flow especially when this muscle is tense.

One important clinical challenge in older individuals is maintaining mobility in the absence of pain. Peripheral arterial disease affects up to 12% of adults over 50 and impairs quality of life due to intermittent claudication causing pain and limiting mobility. Conventional therapies have only modest effect in improving symptoms. We hypothesise that angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition (with ramipril), which causes arterial vasodilation, also improves clinical symptoms in patients with peripheral arterial disease.

Chronic rotator cuff pathology is a musculoskeletal disorder of the shoulder often characterised by pain and weakness. It involves a specific group of muscles in the shoulder, which become damaged over time leading to a chronic loss of full shoulder function and the subsequent loss of quality of life for sufferers. There are few studies comparing the shoulder function of individuals with and without the condition and this is important to help us understand why the condition develops and what treatments might be more effective. Physiotherapy is often used to improve lost shoulder function. Physiotherapists use techniques that aim to reduce pain and weakness of the shoulder, thereby improving function. However there are very few studies that actually evaluate the effectiveness of physiotherapy for this condition. The purpose of this project is to evaluate whether physiotherapy intervention, using current accepted techniques, is effective in reducing pain and stiffness and improving strength and shoulder function. Previous experience has shown that the benefits of physiotherapy have not been properly evaluated by good quality research, and we would like to investigate whether or not physiotherapy is a useful intervention for this condition.

This study will clarify the effectiveness of prism adaptation treatment for stroke patients with hemi-spatial neglect. The treatment group will undergo five training sessions while wearing prism glasses. The control group will undergo the same procedure while wearing sham glasses. The two groups will be compared for improvements in the neglect impairment and in functional abilities.