ANZCTR search results

Infant2Child is a prospective observational study that seeks to understand early life influences on child health on dental health at 4 years. The study will recruit families enrolled in an existing study, Infant to Scale (ACTRN12620000670976), which will recruit and follow 500 children from 3 to 18 months to evaluate the implementation of the INFANT program in Victoria. The study will also recruit approximately 2000 participants through early childcare sites in Victoria. Infant2Child will seek to recruit a total of approximately 3000 participants at 18-24months. Participants will be assessed at 2 key stages, 2 years and 4 years of age, in order to evaluate the effect of early life influences on diet, toothbrushing, the oral microbiome and dental health in early childhood and develop additional strategies to identify and prevent dental caries in high risk children.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of providing information about osteoarthritis and its management to people with knee osteoarthritis. Information about osteoarthritis and its management may help people make more informed decisions about the care they receive and the decision on whether or not to undergo surgery. Participants in this study will be randomly allocated to one of two study groups, each receiving a different intervention.

This study has two main goals: 1. Identifying parts of bacteria that live in your mouth. Identification of these special parts will help us to create tests that may be used in early detection of gum disease. The tests may also enable better and more successful treatment of gum disease. To look for bacteria, samples of your saliva (2-5ml) and dental plaque will be collected before and after treatment. Depending on the initial health of your gums and diagnosis, you will be asked to attend between 2 and 6 visits. 2. Determining how gum disease affects quality of life. To explore this, you will be asked to complete three questionnaires during your first visit.

There has been recent interest in understanding the costs associated with post-operative complications of patients undergoing distal pancreatectomy (removal of the distal end of the pancreas). Accurately defining the costs of complications allows institutions to make more informed decisions as to what these costs are, and then implement strategies to reduce the incidence of complications, thereby mitigating hospital costs. The aim of this study is to provide a detailed costs analysis for patients who undergo distal pancreatectomy. Who is it for? You may be eligible for this study if you are an adult who underwent a distal pancreatectomy. Study details This study will be conducted using a review of medical records, and no patient contact is required. The study will review the medical records of adult patients who underwent a distal pancreatectomy at the Austin Hospital between 1 Jan 2012 and 31 August 2021. It is hoped that this research will help to provide a better understanding of the costs associated with major pancreatic surgery.

This is an implementation study that involves adapting the Canadian Fracture Risk Scale (FRS) into an electronic webtool, and amending the fracture risk Clinical Assessment Protocol (CAP), for use in Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF) with the aim of increasing awareness and guiding practice on fracture risk identification and fracture prevention. It is expected that incorporation of the BreakFree application into the RACF admission process will reduce the risk of hip fracture, increase life expectancy, preserve or improve residents’ quality of life, and reduce health care costs by helping RACF health care workers to better understand fracture risk and guide them in using treatment strategies that have been demonstrated to prevent fractures in the RACF setting.

Informal carers are the cornerstone of helping people with dementia remain at home for as long as possible. However, they have received less education preparation and limited support than professional carers to manage dementia. Caregiver stress and distress are widely reported and contribute to poor health and wellbeing of both carers and care recipients. We propose an innovative patient-centred approach, ‘Partnership in iSupport program’, in hospitals and community aged care settings to enhance support for carers. The intervention comprises support from an iSupport program facilitator, an online or hardcopy psychoeducation program for carers using Australian iSupport for Dementia and carer support groups. We will conduct a trial to determine the effectiveness (aim 1) and cost-effectiveness (aim 2) of the intervention. Carers in the intervention group will participate in the ‘Partnership in iSupport program’ for 12 months. The ‘Partnership in iSupport program’ includes (1) a program facilitator who acts as a link worker to assist informal carers to navigate, access and utilise dementia care services; (2) psychoeducation for informal carers to improve their dementia care capabilities; and (3) carer support groups to strengthen social support for informal carers. We will measure quality of life and health outcomes for carers and care recipients, the use of health and aged care services and the incremental cost per quality adjusted life years gained by the intervention compared to usual care. This study is important because the intervention will improve health and quality of life for both carers and care recipients, reduce preventable hospitalisations of people with dementia and improve dementia care services through reciprocal partnerships between carers and dementia care service providers.

Triage in the Emergency Department (ED) is an opportunity for a time critical point of identification of evolving severe sepsis. Current identification rates at triage are reported in the realm of 50-60% in the literature. Tromp et al undertook an education programme to improve identification of sepsis at triage, and their detection rates were 65%. Techniques to identify sepsis earlier may reduce the time to administration of antibiotics, source control and other resuscitative measures to improve patient outcomes. However, often the triage nurse is working under time pressures, and has limited information available to them to assist with their decision making. Hypothesis: Data analytic techniques may reveal early prompts to identify and place patients on sepsis pathways. Combining the demographic data and triage free text information inputted by the triage nurse could create prompts for the triage nurse to consider “is it sepsis?" earlier. AIMS: To create a predictive likelihood of sepsis from key words in inserted text. In future, develop as decision aid within EDIS (Emergency Department Information System) or separate triage tool. Methods: We will combine two large datasets - an Emergency Department dataset as well as the hospital admission dataset to create a way of determining whether information at the point of Emergency Department triage, may help predict the likelihood of subsequent diagnosis of a serious infection in a patient. "Big data" analytics tools will be used, and the datasets will be split into train, validate and tes components.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the functionality of the Vexev Robot Imaging System (VRIS) for arteriovenous fistula ultrasound scanning. Duplex ultrasound examinations are labour intensive and require highly skilled staff to perform, these staff are limited in the number of scans they are able to perform per day, and hence there are often issues of timely access to quality duplex ultrasound services. The VRIS is designed to autonomously perform high quality duplex ultrasound scans in a fraction of the time of a normal duplex sonography procedure. The VRIS is designed with the goal of outputting highly reproducible and accurate duplex ultrasound, which we hope will improve the ability for clinicians to map, monitor and intervene and hence increase AVF longevity. Normal duplex ultrasound scans involve a medical professional placing an ultrasound probe on the patient’s limb then moving the probe to image the regions of interest. In contrast the VRIS scan involves the patient placing their limb onto a scan bed and the ultrasound probe moving automatically, underneath the scan bed, to scan all regions of interest. It is expected that the VRIS scan will require significantly less time to complete (10mins for VRIS vs ~45mins for normal duplex scan). The primary objective of this feasibility study is to evaluate the feasibility (as defined by the primary endpoints) of the VRIS for AVF ultrasound (US) scanning, performed in a specialist vascular imaging practice. This study does not involve evaluation(s) of the clinical efficacy of the VRIS. Study participants will be enrolled for scanning with the VRIS in the same visit as their scheduled clinically, standard of care, indicated AVF US mapping or surveillance exam. Secondary objectives are to measure the practicality and feasibility of VRIS for routine clinical use and to collect paired outcome data to assist with the development of the VRIS system .

An eHealth solution – Music Attuned Technology for Care via eHealth (MATCH) – was developed to support family carers of people living with dementia to use music intentionally to support care. The mobile application was developed as an extension of an in-person music intervention training program (HOMESIDE) which involved a qualified music therapist offering one on one training to carers in the intentional use of music. To create scalable solutions for the growing number of people living with dementia in the community, we developed a minimal viable product, the MATCH-MVP. A minimal viable product (MVP) is a version for the new product that allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers and is a concept used in entrepreneurship that stresses the impact of learning in new product development. Our Proof-of-concept study aims to test the initial MATCH-MVP prototype in people’s homes to: a) examine the user experience and evaluate the design features of the prototype, and b) test and evaluate whether the MATCH-MVP content is feasible, acceptable, understandable, useful, and the content is learned by carers of people living with dementia.

We have known for some time that serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or severe depression cause significant problems in thinking skills such as attention, concentration, memory or planning. Recently we have become aware that they also cause problems in social cognitive skills such as recognising a person’s emotional state from the expression on their face or being able to think in another person’s shoes. Both of these sets of skills- neurocognition and social cognition – have serious flow on effects upon a person’s ability to function at school, in work or in the community. Unfortunately medications does not help with these problems, but psychological treatments – cognitive remediation and social cognitive remediation therapy does. This study will trial different combinations of these treatments to see if they have separate effects upon treatment outcome. The study will be run in frontline mental health services which will mean that the skills and knowledge will be communicated to the clinical teams maximising benefit.