Optimising Cognitive Screening In General Practice
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$300,550.00
Summary
Within the next 5 - 10 years it is likely that sophisticated combination pharmacotherapy for Alzheimer's disease will become available. Once intervention agents are available that affect the underlying disease process, it will be critical to accurately identify those patients who are in the earliest stages of cognitive decline. That is, failure to detect cognitive decline at an early stage will reduce the effectiveness of the intervention and be costly to the individual and society. At the same ....Within the next 5 - 10 years it is likely that sophisticated combination pharmacotherapy for Alzheimer's disease will become available. Once intervention agents are available that affect the underlying disease process, it will be critical to accurately identify those patients who are in the earliest stages of cognitive decline. That is, failure to detect cognitive decline at an early stage will reduce the effectiveness of the intervention and be costly to the individual and society. At the same time, the probability of falsely identifying an individual as having Alzheimer's disease needs to be reduced in order to avoid unnecessary testing, anxiety and distress, and expense. A sophisticated and highly flexible testing system to detect the earliest stages of memory impairment will be developed. The test will be administered over the web in a general practitioner's surgery enabling the collection of normative data on the population of greatest interest (elderly patients seeing their doctor). Voice recognition technology will be used in order to insure a user friendly environment. Stringent procedures to protect privacy will be employed. The test will be inexpensive and easy to take and will allow valid retesting so that it can be used as part of the routine health screening for the elderly. This will be a far more sensitive and specific indicator of the cognitive decline found in most neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, and will enable general practitioners to be more confident in assessing their older patients. It will also reduce costly referrals by more accurately identifying those patients at risk. It is expected that the test will find acceptance amongst patients and their doctors and become a routine part of normal health screening for the elderly.Read moreRead less
Evaluation Of Rehabilitation Strategies For Prospective Memory In Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$213,950.00
Summary
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting from motor vehicle accidents and other mishaps is a leading cause of death and disability in young adults. Memory problems is one of the most common and debilitating symptoms reported by people with TBI. Traditionally, the treatment of memory problems has focussed on retrospective memory or the ability to recall or recognise previously learned information (e.g., remembering the name of a person, recalling the content of yesterday's news stories). Little res ....Traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting from motor vehicle accidents and other mishaps is a leading cause of death and disability in young adults. Memory problems is one of the most common and debilitating symptoms reported by people with TBI. Traditionally, the treatment of memory problems has focussed on retrospective memory or the ability to recall or recognise previously learned information (e.g., remembering the name of a person, recalling the content of yesterday's news stories). Little research has been conducted on problems with another type of memory called prospective memory or the ability to remember to do something in the future (e.g., remembering to attend an appointment, remembering to pay a bill before its due date). The treatment of prospective memory problems in people with TBI is, however, very important for assisting them to return to work and successful integration into the community. This is because the ability to remember to do things at the right time is essential for work and for independent living. In addition, failure to treat this type of problems can be risky or even life threatening (e.g., forgetting to take medication, forgetting to turn off an electrical appliance). This project aims to evaluate the independent and combined effectiveness of two rehabilitation strategies, namely, promoting awareness of memory problems and adopting compensatory strategies. In addition, this project aims to gauge whether a better management of prospective memory problem will lead to better functioning in the community.Read moreRead less
Investigating The Neural Basis Of Memory Impairments In Schizophrenia
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$82,920.00
Summary
The memory deficits experienced by people with schizophrenia are one of the most disabling symptoms associated with the illness. Taking this into consideration, this proposal will address two key research questions: (1) what regions of the brain are involved in the long-term memory problems in schizophrenia; (2) whether administering the drug ketamine to healthy individuals produces the same changes in brain activation as those observed in schizophrenia patients.
A Randomised Control Trial Of Treatments For Children With Different Types Of Reading Difficulty
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$752,319.00
Summary
This randomise control trial will test treatments for children with different types of reading difficulty. The outcomes will reveal how struggling readers should be supported in classrooms and by the Reading Assistance Voucher programme. This will reduce the number of struggling readers who attempt suicide, drop out of school, or abuse drugs to try and escape their sense of failure. This will suport the Government's efforts to ensure that Australians have A Healthy Start to Life.
The Cognitive Impact Of Opioids During Chronic Administration
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$416,024.00
Summary
Many people are now being prescribed opioid drugs for long periods of time, mainly for the treatment of chronic pain. These drugs can adversely affect the person's ability to drive a car, hold down a job, and perform normal functions of daily living. This project will investigate what types of impairment are produced by these drugs and how the drugs can best be used so as to minimise the effects on patients.
Auditory Processing Deficits In Specific Language Impairment And Specific Reading Disability:Their Effects And Treatment
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$314,250.00
Summary
One possible cause of specific language impairment (SLI) and specific reading disability (SRD; commonly known as dyslexia) is an inability to discriminate between sounds. Such an impairment could affect the ability to discriminate between simple speech sounds (phonemes) which are the basic building blocks for developing spoken language and reading skills. How many children with SLI or SRD have poor sound discrimination? What pattern of spoken language and reading impairments do these children ha ....One possible cause of specific language impairment (SLI) and specific reading disability (SRD; commonly known as dyslexia) is an inability to discriminate between sounds. Such an impairment could affect the ability to discriminate between simple speech sounds (phonemes) which are the basic building blocks for developing spoken language and reading skills. How many children with SLI or SRD have poor sound discrimination? What pattern of spoken language and reading impairments do these children have as a result of this impairment? Can poor sound discrimination be fixed? If it can, does it improve spoken language and reading impairments? And if it does, does it have an immediate effect or does it take some time to make a difference? These are some of the questions that will be addressed by this research. The answers will help us develop a training program that focuses specifically on improving the sound discrimination abilities of children who really need it. This will be a more efficient and inexpensive (if not free) than the Fast ForWord program that trains multiple non-verbal and verbal processing abilities regardless of whether a child has an impairment in all (or any) of these abilities and is therefore time consuming (approximately 80 hours) and expensive (approximately $AUD2000). The data will also help up better identify the spoken and written language profiles that characterise children who have sound discrimination deficits so we can better predict whether they would benefit from training programs such as Fast ForWord. And the data will tell use whether impaired sound discrimination can be used to predict whether infants might be at risk for later spoken language and reading problems.Read moreRead less
Imaging Genetics Of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$321,767.00
Summary
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common psychiatric disorder of childhood that is marked by age-inappropriate levels of inattention and-or hyperactivity-impulsivity. The disorder appears genetic with a number of different genes likely contributing risk for ADHD. This project takes an innovative approach by asking how risk genes for ADHD influence the brain activity of children with ADHD when they pay attention