ANZCTR search results

The aim of the current study is to evaluate relationships between sleep, exercise and memory and thinking skills in older adults who are 'poor sleepers'. The results from this study will allow us to determine how sleep may influence the relationship between exercise and memory, allowing the development of effective lifestyle interventions to delay the onset of memory decline, and ultimately dementia. The intervention for this study involves cycling on a stationary exercise bicycle, and subsequently completing memory testing and sleep measurement. It is hypothesised that immediately after a single session exercise, and 24-hrs post exercise, participants will show improved memory performance, and improved sleep that night, compared to a control session (no exercise).

This is a one-year independent study designed to provide a database for the unvaccinated population for comparative analysis with the vaccinated population in order to evaluate the success of the Covid19 mass vaccination programme and support future research projects. This study is not, and will never be, linked to any pharmaceutical company.

This study will assess whether topical application of a CBD gel can provide analgesia for patients suffering from osteoarthritis of the hand. A growing body of evidence suggests that inflamed tissue caused by osteoarthritis may be susceptible to treatment using CBD. Despite oral ingestion of cannabinoid products being the preferred route of administration, its poor aqueous solubility and extensive first-pass metabolism lead to poor bioavailability, which limits see its potential efficacy. The ability to deliver CBD directly to local, inflamed tissue using topical application may provide superior analgesia than oral dosage forms, whilst minimising any concerns related to systemic exposure. This study will assess whether topical application of a CBD gel can provide analgesia for patients suffering from osteoarthritis of the hand. In addition to analgesia, the study will investigate whether topical CBD can provide benefits for other symptoms of osteoarthritis of the hand; poor grip strength and hand functionality. Results from this study will support further clinical development of the CBD gel, as well as future prescribing to patients.

Lactoferrin is a well-known anti-viral and anti-bacterial protein that previous research has shown can improve immune function and reduce respiratory tract infections. Lactoferrin is made in the human body as part of our immune system defence and is normally present in saliva and breast milk. Lactoferrin is also naturally present in cow’s milk, allowing it to be purified and used as a dietary supplement. Clinical trials in adults and children show that lactoferrin supplements can reduce respiratory tract infections, though little research has been done to help us understand how lactoferrin improves immune function. The LIFE trial will test a lactoferrin dietary supplement in older adults, as immune function can decrease with older age. The LIFE trial will test whether taking a lactoferrin supplement, daily for 4 weeks can improve immune function and protect against virus infection in older adults. Researchers will do this by looking at changes in immune cells from blood samples taken before and after the 4-week trial.

Several studies have now reported that modest improvements in diet (eating more fruit and vegetables) can lead to improvements in mood (Firth et al., 2019; Jacka et al., 2017; Parletta et al., 2019). In our recent study, Francis et al., (2019) demonstrated that a 3-week diet intervention for participants who reported low mood experienced significant improvement after the intervention, compared to controls. The usual explanation for these effects of diet is ‘physiological’. However, an alternative explanation is that positive expectations about a treatment (i.e., a placebo effect) and ‘taking control’ of events in your life (called self-efficacy) can both make you feel better. It is very likely that people believe that fresh food is good for you. It is also very likely that taking charge of ones’ diet is likely to increase feelings of self-efficacy. Together, these psychological effects could improve a person’s mood. Therefore, the aim of our study is to investigate if the beneficial effects of a healthy diet on mood are in part from positive expectations and improved self-efficacy.

Evidence demonstrates that being outdoors and exposed to greenery has a positive impact on our physical and mental health. Numerous studies have explored interventions that support older people living in Residential Aged Care Facilities to participate in outdoor activities such as gardening and walking groups resulting in a variety of benefits such as reductions in depression, stress, falls and vitamin D deficiency. However, Residential Aged Care Facilities often report that outdoor spaces are unused. Common barriers include the design of the outdoor space and the main building (access points and their usability), safety concerns and staffing issues, weather and access to shelter, and lack of social activities. This study aims to reduce these barriers by co-designing with residents, their family/carers and staff an intervention at three Residential Aged Care Facilities in Victoria, Australia to improve safe access to and satisfaction with outdoor spaces. This in turn will increase opportunities for residents to access the benefits that we know time spent outdoors provides.

This research project compares two different absorbable nasal dressings applied directly after functional endoscopic sinus surgery for the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis. One is chitosan-dextran (Chitodex) gel mixed with a topical steroid added and the other is the current standard of care PureRegen gel. Post-operative adhesion formation to sinus openings and wound-healing will be assessed as well as the participant's subjective and objective symptoms scores.

RECORD-AF study will enroll participants with a clinical diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (AF). This study will assess development of stroke and cognitive decline overtime, as well as record mortality rate among patients with AF. The primary objectives of this study are: 1. Assess the interaction of baseline AF health literacy, social determinants of health and biological aging the incidence of long-term outcomes such as: a) heart failure (HF) (HF preserved ejection fraction (EF), HF midrange EF, and HF reduced EF); b) mortality; c) stroke; d) cognitive decline and e) progression of AF Secondary objectives of this study are: 1. Determine the impact of blood pressure variability on long-term outcomes, in particular cognitive impairment, in patients with paroxysmal and non-paroxysmal AF. 2. Determine factors associated with development of tachycardia induced cardiomyopathy in AF patients.

During radiation therapy treatment, some treatment machines have the ability to monitor a patients breathing patterns during treatment using a monitoring camera. A particular benefit of this treatment technique is for left sided breast patients as a deep breath (and hold) allows us to treat the breast cancer with reduced radiation dose to the heart. In this study, we are looking at whether the patient monitoring camera on the end of the Varian Halcyon treatment machine couch (called a Live View System (LVS)) can be used to monitor patients breathing during treatment. This will be compared to the currently used breathing motion camera called the Real-time Position Management (RPM) System. Who is it for? You may be eligible for this study if you are an adult receiving radiation therapy treatment at an Icon Cancer Centre. Study details We are aiming to recruit at least 16 patients (32 patients in total) at each participating site in order to determine the effectiveness of the new camera based system. Data will be collected from patients that are already being treated using the RPM system as well as other patients who are receiving radiation therapy treatment. This study will not impact the patients treatment in any way. For those patients where the RPM system is already being used in their treatment, data will be collected on both the RPM and LVS system during their treatment. The breath-hold-gating devices will collect the data during one daily treatment only and will not take any additional time for the patient. If breath-hold-gating is not required as a part of the patients treatment, they will be asked to participate, in a session separate from their treatment where their breathing can be monitored over a short period of time, providing data from both systems that can then be compared. It is intended that this research will contribute to the outcomes of patients by allowing motion management to be utilised on the Halcyon Linear Accelerator.

To reduce the occurrence of autoimmune adverse events from the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) with alemtuzumab through the subsequent targeted use of rituximab. The hypothesis to be tested is that rituximab therapy following alemtuzumab treatment for MS will reduce the frequency of autoimmune adverse events. If this strategy proves to be safe and is effective in preventing or significantly reducing the frequency of autoimmune adverse events in the treatment of MS with alemtuzumab, then this approach could be adopted immediately in a large number of pwMS with an immediate reduction in co-morbidity.