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Anxiety, mood and substance use disorders have significant social and economic impacts, largely attributable to their early age of onset and chronic disabling course. It is therefore critical to intervene early to prevent these chronic and debilitating trajectories. This project is a world-first effectiveness trial of an online peer intervention (Mind Your Mate) to prevent mental health (focusing on anxiety and depression) and substance use problems in adolescence. It is hypothesised that compared to students in the control condition, those allocated to receive the peer intervention will show significantly lower symptoms of anxiety, depression and substance use, and an increased willingness to seek help for these problems. The online peer intervention includes one introductory classroom lesson, plus a downloadable mobile application (app) that will be used for the duration of 12 months. A CONSORT compliant randomised controlled trial (RCT) of the peer intervention will be conducted with all students in Year 9 in 14 NSW high-schools, with approximately 1,400 students (n=100 students per grade, per school). Schools will be randomly allocated to receive; 1) the online peer intervention, or 2) waitlist control (health education as usual). Students will be followed-up for one year, with assessments at baseline, and 6- and 12-months.

Aims: This is a prospective cohort study with a primary aim to determine whether Mr Fogarty’s UPPP technique results in improved post-operative AHIs. Secondary aims include analysis of participants’ pre- and post-operative experience of sleep disordered breathing, Research activities: The research participants will be asked to undergo both pre-operative and three months post-operative sleep studies through the Albury Wodonga Private Hospital. Patients will also be asked to complete the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire (FOSQ-10) both pre-operatively and at three months post-operatively. No other participant follow-up will be required beyond the usual surgical post-operative practice.

The perception of health of the body and the estimation of the capacity of the body is informed by visual information from the body. It has been shown that creating the visual illusion of a muscled and fit looking back increased the participants feeling of strength and confidence in the back. This seems to also affect the pain experience. Pain during a lifting task was dramatically less when viewing an embodied image of a strong back than when viewing a normal image of the back .We have demonstrated a similar phenomenon with exercise induced muscle pain. Participants rated their pain as greater when viewing a magnified image of the thigh during contraction of the injured thigh muscles compared with viewing the thigh normally. We interpreted this as the magnified image suggesting a more swollen and therefore more injured muscle. We wish to see if other visual information than suggests a more sensitised structure similarly influences pain intensity without the confounding effect of visual distortion, particularly in clinical pain. Other researchers have shown that changing the colour of the body part changed sensitivity in an experimental pain model. Making the body part appear red, suggesting inflamed tissue, increased sensitivity whereas making the part appear blue had no effect on sensitivity. We hope to explore this phenomenon to see if, and to what extent, it exists in AT, and to simultaneously investigate the effect of this type of visual information on tendon function – something which no study of visually manipulation has done before. The aim of this study is therefore to examine the effect of augmented visualisation on pain and function in people with AT. To achieve this, we will assess pain and leg stiffness with hopping in people with AT while they view a video image of their leg under normal conditions and compare these results with an augmented vision condition in which the tendon is painted red. To control for the confounding effect of a change in tendon colour we will have an additional control condition in which the tendon is painted blue.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common, disabling mental illness that is difficult to treat. Electroencephalographic (EEG) studies have shown numerous differences in the brain oscillatory activity in OCD patients when compared to healthy individuals. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a novel, safe method of delivering a weak electrical current through the brain in order to modulate the altered brain activity. The main advantage of tACS is its ability to stimulate the brain at specific frequencies that are found to be altered in OCD groups. This study aims to conduct a randomised, controlled, blinded experimental study with an open label crossover phase to explore the use of alpha tACS when compared to a placebo/sham stimulation in individuals with OCD. Participants will use a custom designed, portable tACS device to administer stimulation at their homes. The main aim is to investigate whether alpha tACS is able to cause a significant improvement in clinical severity than placebo stimulation in OCD patients.

The purpose of this study is the investigate the abilities of five toothpastes, three of which will be experimental formulations, to prevent and repair tooth decay. It is hypothesized that some of the experimental formulations will be more effective in preventing decay and repairing early decay. Volunteers will will wear custom-made removable denture-like appliances with sterilized human tooth slabs attached for 24 hours a day except when eating, drinking and cleaning their teeth and their appliance for five 14-consecutive day treatment periods. During each treatment period they will rinse with a sugar solution and a slurry of one of the five toothpastes each for one minute four times a day while wearing the appliance. They will rest for a week between each 14-day treatment period and will rinse with a different toothpaste slurry and with new tooth slabs attached to their appliances during each treatment period.

Recovery after spinal cord injury can be potentiated by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the brain. Current rTMS protocols use high stimulation intensities, which can cause discomfort, limit the application duration of rTMS and might cause unwanted stimulation of deeper brain areas. Preclinical work from our group has shown that low-intensity rTMS can induce plastic changes. In the current proposal we will test the safety and feasibility of a stimulation protocol mimicking that used in our preclinical work, and measure outcomes using robotics and neurophysiology.

Availability of an oral tablet, empagliflozin (EG) is seen as a potential alternative to insulin injections for elevated glucose levels due to steroid treatment. We aim to investigate this. EG is already widely used for treatment in diabetic patients.

What is this project about? Western Australian children have significantly lower levels of motor skill competency, fitness, physical activity (PA) and sports participation compared to children 30 years ago. Research has found children below the proficiency level in motor skills are less likely to participate in lifelong PA or sport with females showing a greater decline than their male peers. Low levels of PA and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) have been shown to increase the risk for chronic disease in Australia. Preadolescent females are an important target group for changing PA activity habits as this age cohort will move into the crucial period of adolescence, where motor skill competency, weight status and body image can significantly influence self-confidence and psycho-social health. This project aims to determine whether a multi-modal intervention combining fundamental movement skills (FMS), high intensity interval training (HIIT) and strength training will improve preadolescent females’ motor skill competency, perceived motor skill competence, CRF, strength, weight status, PA levels, sport participation and psycho-social health. It also seeks to ascertain whether the intervention will result in increased levels of PA, sports participation and psycho-social health in the longer term so that it may increase lifelong PA and reduce the risk of chronic disease across the lifespan.

The purpose of this study is to determine if a behaviour change intervention is effective in increasing physical activity in women with breast cancer. Who is it for? You may be eligible for this study if you are an adult female who has been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer (i.e. spread to the bones or one of the organs) and currently not a regular exerciser. Study details Participants will be randomly divided into two groups. Both groups will receive a Fitbit device and activity diary booklet, and take part in 6 weekly and 3 fortnightly calls over 12 weeks total. - For Group A, the phone calls will involve asking about their physical activity and cancer-related symptoms - For Group B, the phone calls will additionally include counselling for physical activity based on behaviour change theories. The majority of the project will be done over the phone or online, with the first and last sessions done in-person. Participants will need to complete assessments at baseline and after 12 weeks at the University of Sydney, involving physical assessments looking at fitness and physical function, and answering questionnaires. It is hoped that this research will help determine if a 12-week behaviour change program will result in changes in physical activity and quality of life for exercise.

Keyhole inguinal hernia repair is a common operation which requires a netting mesh to reinforce the inguinal region. It may be fixed in the required position by sutures or metal/biodegradable tacks. An alternative to either of these is a cyanoacrylate glue which is a strong, inert plastic glue. Early studies show that it has the same fixation effect as other methods. It may have the advantage of reducing the operating time and avoiding damage to underlying structures (such as nerve or blood vessels) that sutures or tacks may cause. Our study aims to compare the use of glue to the current methods of fixation in keyhole inguinal hernia repair, particularly examining if it has the benefit of reducing groin pain for patients after the operation. We aim to randomly assign patients who have already agreed and consented to a keyhole inguinal hernia repair, to either glue or tack fixation for their mesh during their operation. All other aspects of their surgery and care will be the same. We will also review each patient’s wellbeing at the normal time points after the operation as we would for a standard inguinal hernia operation.