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Registered Nurse‐Led Interdisciplinary Care: A Single Case Study of a Young Woman With Intellectual Disability and Chronic and Complex Health Problems
No full textAimTo describe how specialised models of registered nurse-led care and support can play a vital role in the health and quality of life of someone with intellectual disability and multiple chronic and complex health problems.DesignSingle instrumental case study.MethodsData collection occurred between March and August 2023, and included interviews with parents, historical case files, descriptions of the nurse-led model of care and a list of the daily registered nurse-led interventions.ResultsThe evidence presented strongly support the positive impact a nurse-led model of care can have for persons with profound disability and complex health conditions, and their families. The improved quality of life observed in this project underscores the significant role nurses play in enhancing the well-being of this vulnerable population.ConclusionFurther research on a larger scale should be completed to create a robust foundation of a specialised, nurse-led model of care for individuals with profound disability and complex health conditions.ImplicationsThere is room for funded intermediate models of care as the health system cannot be expected, and nor is it appropriate, to provide ongoing care for all people with intellectual disability.Reporting MethodThis study adhered to the COREQ guidelines for qualitative research.Patient or Public ContributionNo patient or public contribution
A Protocol for Enhancing Allied Health Care for Older People in Residential Care:The EAHOP Intervention
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Complications due to frailty and injury after falls are a significant problem for people living in residential aged care. This can lead to a range of negative outcomes including poor physical, social, and psychological well-being. The Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety highlighted many aspects of care in residential aged care homes requiring improvement, leading to specific recommendations aimed at improving the outcomes in this area. This contributed to four recommendations calling for increased allied health interventions to meet the unmet needs in residential aged care. This intervention aims to implement and evaluate evidence-based allied health interventions for people living in residential aged care specifically relating to frailty, preventing falls, and maintaining engagement in everyday activities.METHOD: This is a pragmatic, non-randomised, pre-post design study where six groups of up to 10 residents of an aged care home will start the intervention at staggered times. The EAHOP intervention is an integrated application of a suite of allied health services (occupational therapy, physiotherapy, dietetics, speech pathology, pharmacy, and optometry), with general practitioner involvement, using allied health assistants in an integrated transdisciplinary model of care. The baseline period is 6 weeks, and intervention is a maximum of 36 weeks with follow-up at 12 and 24 weeks. Primary outcomes measure changes in falls, frailty, and quality of life. A qualitative program evaluation will be completed as well as an economic analysis.CONCLUSION: The results of the study will provide information about the clinical, implementation, and effectiveness outcomes of this integrated, transdisciplinary allied health service model for people living in residential aged care. The results will be used to develop evidence-informed guidelines for residential aged care providers on the delivery of allied health services.</p
Simon says Teals keen for costly minority government
Get PDFFrom the National Press Club: The disdain for conservatives was palpable in Simon Holmes à Court’s address at the National Press Club in Canberra on March 12. It is interesting that the son of Robert Holmes à Court, Australia’s first billionaire (known as the ‘Great Acquirer’), appears less aggressive in business than he is politics. Holmes à Court sees the Liberal Party as a great, big ‘carbon bomb’ that will go off if the Coalition are able to form a majority government later this year. The Teals and the Greens have, in my opinion, the potential to fracture the left much like the conservative parties are fracturing the right. Naturally, both sides of the minor parties are arguing that a minority government is better than the alternative of a Labor or Coalition majority government. Holmes à Court referred to those people who intend to vote outside the two major parties as ‘double haters’ who are likely to bring about a minority government
Multiview Attention Fusion for Explainable Body Language Behavior Recognition
No full textBody language behavior, including gestures and fine-grained movements not only reflects human emotions, but also serves as a versatile cue for enhancing emotional intelligence and creating responsive technologies. In this work, we explore the efficacy of multiview-multimodal cues for explainable prediction of bodily behavior. This paper proposes an attention fusion method that combines features extracted from (1) multiview videos termed “RGB”, (2) their multiview Discrete Cosine Transform representations termed “DCT” and (3) three stream skeleton features termed “Skeleton”, via a transformer-based approach. We evaluate our approach on the diverse BBSI [1] and Drive&Act [2] datasets. Empirical results confirm that the RGB, DCT and Skeleton features enable discovery of multiple class-specific behaviors resulting in explainable predictions. Our key findings are: (a) Multimodal approaches outperform unimodal counterparts in categorizing bodily behavioral classes; (b) Efficient class predictions and plausible explanations are achieved with both unimodal and multimodal approaches; and (c) Empirical results confirm the superiority of our approach compared to state-of-the-art methods on both datasets. Our implementation code is available at: https://github.com/surbhimadan92/MAGIC_TBR_Extended<br/
A systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence and risk of syphilis among blood donors in Thailand
Get PDFDespite rising rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Thailand, including syphilis, data on its prevalence and associated risk factors among blood donors remain scarce. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to estimate the prevalence of syphilis and identify the key risk factors among blood donors in Thailand to inform targeted interventions for enhanced blood safety.The study protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42024560215) and conducted following PRISMA guidelines. Comprehensive searches were performed across major databases, including ProQuest, Journals@Ovid, Embase, Scopus, PubMed, and MEDLINE, to identify relevant studies. A random-effects model was used to calculate the pooled prevalence and odds ratios (ORs) for syphilis risk factors. Heterogeneity was quantified using the I² statistic, and meta-regression and subgroup analyses were employed to explore potential sources of heterogeneity. Publication bias was assessed using funnel plots and Egger's regression test. A total of 23 studies involving 1,142,910 blood donors were included. The pooled prevalence of syphilis among blood donors in Thailand was 0.42% (95% CI 0.27-0.66%, I²: 99.3%, number of infections: 6,173), with a decreasing trend over time. Male donors were significantly more likely to have syphilis (P < 0.0001; pooled OR: 1.76; 95% CI 1.53-2.03; I²: 34.2%, 651,019 participants). First-time donors also had an elevated risk of syphilis (P = 0.02; pooled OR: 2.02; 95% CI 1.10-3.70; I²: 94.0%, 215,245 participants). Additionally, the analysis revealed a significant association between increasing age and higher syphilis risk among blood donors. The systematic review and meta-analysis indicated that syphilis prevalence among blood donors in Thailand is declining; however, male and first-time donors, as well as older age groups, remain at higher risk. To enhance blood safety, targeted interventions are needed, including refining donor screening questionnaires, expanding educational campaigns for high-risk groups, and incorporating advanced screening technologies. Strengthening and regularly updating national screening policies will ensure the effective mitigation of syphilis transmission among blood donors in Thailand.</p
Consumer Experience of an Australian Multidisciplinary Long COVID Clinic That Incorporates Personalised Exercise Prescription:A Qualitative Analysis
No full textBACKGROUND: In Australia, Long COVID is prevalent in 5%-10% of COVID-19 cases. Few multidisciplinary services exist to support recovery from Long COVID. OBJECTIVE: To understand the consumer experience and acceptability of a novel Australian Long COVID Recovery Clinic, which incorporates personalised exercise prescription including respiratory and peripheral strengthening and carefully monitored cardiovascular training. DESIGN: Qualitative study; semi-structured interviews conducted by a researcher external to the clinic delivery. SETTING, PARTICIPANTS: A convenience sample of participants who have completed the Long COVID Recovery Clinic. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Major themes were identified by inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Fifteen participants were interviewed. 14/15 (93%) participants described the clinic model as acceptable or highly acceptable. Five core themes were identified, including (1) encouraging staff and light-filled facilities support recovery; (2) supervised exercise and pacing improve confidence with exercise; (3) peer support and group therapy augments recovery; (4) other services augment Long COVID recovery, and (5) importance of GP involvement in connection with clinic participation. Suggestions for improvement included extending the duration of the clinic programme beyond 2 months, reducing wait times by increasing staffing levels and adjusting the clinic schedule to broaden access options. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of participants found that the Long COVID Recovery Clinic, which incorporates both supervised exercise and pacing, is acceptable and would recommend it to others. From the consumer perspective, the Long COVID Recovery Clinic aids recovery alongside GP management through a combination of peer support and an individually tailored programme. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: A consumer was a highly valued member of our research team. She has been involved in study design, analysis, and interpretation. She has also been involved in editing the manuscript and provided advice to ensure the language used in the manuscript is sensitive to a consumer audience. As our consumer meets the authorship guidelines, we have included her as an author in this manuscript. We also intend to include our consumers in the dissemination of these results when published (e.g., social media). TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12622000719730.</p
Loving Work:Surviving, Gathering and Dreaming for Indigenous Futures
No full textT’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss is a Skwxwú7mesh, Stó꞉lō, Kānaka Maoli, Irish-Métis, and Swiss educator, interdisciplinary artist and Indigenous ethnobotanist. In this chapter, she and Denise Thwaites discuss how love, gathering and dreaming are central to Indigenous economies of cultural survival. The interview embraces embodied and ecological perspectives to consider how cultural inheritance can be reimagined beyond colonial paradigms, by embracing reciprocal relations with people, spirits and lands
Albo is officially on the ropes after knocking himself out
No full textAfter three years of the worst government in Australian history, it isn’t the cost-of-living crisis, the divided society, the reduced productivity, the poor defence stance, or the increased public spending ailing Albanese. It’s not even Tony Burke’s spurious use of citizenship ceremonies to try to save a sinking ship. It is Albo breaking his own promise to return integrity to politics that has knocked him out of the next federal election
Nurturing Heritage in Community Gardens
No full textCommunity gardens can support future-focused, more-than-human heritage making, preservation and transmission. By drawing on ethnographic work in community gardens in Canberra, Australia's Capital City, this chapter explores how diverse heritage values and emerging futures are grounded in the practices that are nurtured in these sites. With the aim of contributing to the growing body of work that takes an “ecological approach to heritage in the Anthropocene” (Bangstad & Petursdottir 2022, p. 9), everyday, food-based informal economies of participation are shown to be capable of nourishing soil, the well-being of gardeners and broader human and non-human communities. Moving beyond ideas of place and place attachment, the chapter also suggests that these outcomes emerge from cultivation of a sense of ecological belonging, which is a concept that attunes gardeners to multispecies relations that stretch beyond the temporalities and spatialities of contemporary gardening sites. In so doing, this chapter expands the repertoire of participatory heritage practices and sows the seeds for reimagining collective, public gardening endeavours as important forms of sociocultural participation capable of contributing to the creation of more liveable future