ANZCTR search results

To examine a prospective cohort of patients who are planned to undergo transfusion with red blood cells (including transfusions optimised for HLA compatibility between donor and recipient), and examine the incidence of de novo formation of antibodies to blood donor HLA molecules (bDSA).

Women with a history of gestational diabetes (GDM) have up to a 7 times higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2DM) than women without GDM. Many women with GDM report that following delivery, they feel a lack of support and feel abandoned by the health system in terms of T2DM prevention. The risk of developing T2DM can be lowered by adopting a healthy lifestyle. However, women from this group often report that it is challenging to adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle due to work and family commitments, lack of time, cost constraints, and limited access to information on healthy behaviours. This project aims to assess how feasible, acceptable and effective the Body Balance Beyond program is, with or without individualised video coaching and/or personalised text messages, among women with recent GDM.

The study will involve providing a psychological intervention to parents whose children suffer from arthritis. The intervention will focus on changing the parent’s thinking and behaviours around their child’s experience of pain in arthritis, and helping parents develop skills to better assist their child in learning to cope with pain. This intervention will consist of four, two-hour sessions at Murdoch University and will be delivered in groups of 6-8 parents. Only parents will be required to attend these sessions as this intervention will be parent-focused, helping to educate parents about chronic pain and providing them with skills to better equip them to helping their child manage their pain.We aim to investigate whether this intervention can to lead to: a. reduction in unhelpful thoughts that parents may have about the impact of pain on their child. b. increase helpful parenting strategies; c. reduce parent’s fear of pain and, d. improve parent self-care. This will be assessed by administering questionnaires to the parents before and after the completion of the intervention. We also want to investigate whether any improvements amongst parents will lead to improvements in children’s functioning and mental health. Improvements amongst children will be assessed by the parents, who will be administered questionnaires before and after the completion of the intervention. Children will not be required to complete any questionnaires.

Smartphones are increasingly commonplace in the general population. Patient-facing mobile applications (“apps”) are software programs installed on smartphones that offer an opportunity to help modify behaviour of the smartphone user at low cost and with little or no clinician input. Multiple smoking cessation apps exist but very few have been independently evaluated, particularly in a hard-to-treat, hospital setting. The most downloaded smoking cessation app in Australia is My Quit Buddy, developed and marketed for the Department of Health. Preliminary data shows encouraging effects on smoking cessation in a self-selected and self-reported younger user group. Smokers seen in hospital settings are older, perhaps less sophisticated users of information technology with probably more ‘hard core’ nicotine addiction coupled with end-organ disease. The acceptability and potential effects of smoking cessation apps in this population are important to assess. Aims We propose a pilot randomized controlled study to help answer these questions and determine the sample size required for a definitive study. The smoking cessation app and standard care (online, generic smoking cessation information provided by Queensland Health) will be delivered as an adjunct to normal standards of care (i.e. as per RACGP guidelines). Both groups will have full access to all standard therapies for smoking cessation including pharmacotherapy, counselling. This study will estimate the incremental effect of My Quit Buddy app on smoking cessation rates at 3 months.

The purpose of this study is to trial a combination treatment of speech pathology and amitriptyline for vocal cord dysfunction and compare this to speech pathology alone. The aim is to reduce the symptoms of vocal cord dysfunction.

The purpose of the study is to determine whether Botulinum toxin type A (BoNTA)injections into upper limb muscles can improve impairment, function and quality of life in patients with disabling upper limb postural / kinetic tremor.

The aim of the study is to determine the clinical effectiveness of a system for turning and positioning Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients, when compared to usual care turning and positioning devices, for preventing pressure injuries.

Infants born preterm are at risk of adverse long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes, including cognitive, behavioural and motor deficits (including cerebra palsy). These adverse outcomes can significantly impair social and educational functioning and quality of life. We have established a cohort of infants born very preterm (<31 weeks gestation) with early neonatal brain imaging and concurrent clinical assessment of motor, neurological and neurobehavioural function (PREMO - Prediction of Preterm Motor Outcomes, ACTRN12613000280707; PREBO - Prediction of Preterm Brain Outcomes, ACTRN12615000591550). This study now aims to examine whether early MRI scans or clinical assessments can predict a child’s motor, cognitive, language, educational achievement and mental health outcomes at 6 years corrected age. If this is found to be the case, then in future, families will be provided with information on their child’s likely development much earlier. This will enable families to receive support and their children to be offered earlier treatments to help them with their movement, learning or behavioural development.

Motor imagery is an imagining of an action without its physical execution; it is a dynamic state during which the representation of a given motor act is internally rehearsed or imagined within working memory without any overt muscle activation. Motor imagery activates brain regions that are activated during actual task performance and motor imagery training has been found to improve task performance. Motor imagery has been found to improve static balance in the elderly but its effect on strength and mobility in older adults is unknown. The aim of this study is to determine whether imagining certain movements over a four week period promotes improvements in strength and mobility. It is hypothesised that motor imagery will lead to small improvements in strength and mobility.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of two methods of food introduction following a pancreaticoduodenectomy (otherwise known as Whipple procedure). Who is it for? You may be eligible for this study if you are aged 18 or over, and are undergoing a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or Whipple procedure) at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. Study details Participants will be randomised by chance into two groups. After their planned Whipple procedure, each group will follow a similar nutritional plan, reintroducing foods in a defined manner. One group (the ‘intervention’) will also have nutritional supplementation through a needle in the shoulder placed before surgery. For the 7 days after surgery and one month later, both groups will complete a number of questionnaires and strength tests. It is hoped this research will demonstrate the feasibility of performing the study and, to see if there is an improvement in a participants overall function if they get the food via a needle compared to the usual diet progression after the surgery.