The Prevention, Early Detection, & Effective Management Of Neurocognitive Disorders In The Elderly
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$4,929,014.00
Summary
The unprecedented greying of the world population is posing a major challenge to health care in meeting the needs of older individuals with cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer�s disease. At the same time, drugs are being developed to prevent these disorders, or to treat them effectively. Our proposal is a comprehensive attempt at dealing with the neuropsychiatric aspects of these neurocognitive disorders. Our group is endeavouring to better define the early stages of these disorders, and study ....The unprecedented greying of the world population is posing a major challenge to health care in meeting the needs of older individuals with cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer�s disease. At the same time, drugs are being developed to prevent these disorders, or to treat them effectively. Our proposal is a comprehensive attempt at dealing with the neuropsychiatric aspects of these neurocognitive disorders. Our group is endeavouring to better define the early stages of these disorders, and studying methods of detecting them at an early stage, using the latest neuropsychological and neuroimaging techniques. We wish to investigate new drugs for the prevention of dementia. Much of dementia is not treated early because of lack of training of primary care physicians in identifying dementia, and we are developing methods to deal with this problem. We are also examining the role of cognitive disorders in accidents and suicides in the elderly, and the development of depression. We are determining the role of psychiatric disorders in the care of these patients, and the methods of alleviating the burden of disease. We expect that this research will make a major impact on health policy for these disorders in Australia. We also hope to make our Program the premier centre for training in geriatric neuropsychiatry.Read moreRead less
Prevention, Early Detection And Effective Management Of Neurocognitive Disorders In The Elderly
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$6,547,975.00
Summary
The Program comprises a number of longitudinal studies of ageing individuals to develop methods of diagnosing dementia before symptoms become prominent. We are also examining factors that increase the risk of developing dementia. We wish to translate this research into early and better diagnosis, and the development of new treatments and strategies for dementia care. We expect that this research will make a major impact on health policy in Australia for cognitive disorders in the elderly.
Sitting Less And Moving More: Population Health Research To Understand And Influence Sedentary Behaviour
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$6,367,518.00
Summary
The majority of Australian adults spend most of their waking hours sitting: at home, at work, and in their cars; most do not participate in exercise or sport. This leads to weight gain and to diseases of inactivity (particularly diabetes, heart disease, cancer and depression). New research will measure sitting time and the physical activity in people's daily lives, what factors encourage inactivity, and how to increase activity levels, especially among the ageing 'baby boomer' population.
Sexually Transmitted Infections: Causes, Consequences And Interventions
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$9,784,331.00
Summary
Sexually transmitted infections are important causes of serious illness and death in Australia and overseas with high or rising rates of treatable or preventable diseases in a number of populations, Particularly affected in Australia are young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and homosexual men. We will bring together a new team of researchers to discover new information about how to prevent and manage these infections.
This program, run by an established team with skills in public health, clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, health economics and behavioural science addresses the under-researched issues of whether, when and how to use medical tests. The elements of the program follow the sequence in which testing is often done: for screening (early detection), for diagnosis on which to base treatment decisions, and for monitoring the effects of treatment. A common approach throughout is the identification of t ....This program, run by an established team with skills in public health, clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, health economics and behavioural science addresses the under-researched issues of whether, when and how to use medical tests. The elements of the program follow the sequence in which testing is often done: for screening (early detection), for diagnosis on which to base treatment decisions, and for monitoring the effects of treatment. A common approach throughout is the identification of the benefits and harms of testing and assessing their trade-off; how benefits weigh up against harms. This research is relevant to all partners in healthcare, (consumers, clinicians and policy-makers), who currently are being tested or using tests without being fully informed about the accuracy and effects of these tests.Read moreRead less
Understanding And Influencing Physical Activity To Improve Population Health
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$4,668,376.00
Summary
Three of Australia's leading researchers on physical activity and population health will use new NHMRC program grant funding to consolidate and extend their already internationally-recognised studies. Doing regular physical activity is very important for maintaining good health. It helps to prevent weight gain, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and breast and colon cancer. Unfortunately, most Australian adults are not active enough for health benefits. Rates of overweight and obesity are increasing ....Three of Australia's leading researchers on physical activity and population health will use new NHMRC program grant funding to consolidate and extend their already internationally-recognised studies. Doing regular physical activity is very important for maintaining good health. It helps to prevent weight gain, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and breast and colon cancer. Unfortunately, most Australian adults are not active enough for health benefits. Rates of overweight and obesity are increasing rapidly; more than 50% of Australian adults are above the healthy weight range. Rates of type 2 diabetes have doubled in the past 20 years. New ideas and practical tools are therefore needed to tackle these serious ‘diseases of inactivity’. To this end, Professors Neville Owen, Adrian Bauman and Wendy Brown will bring together innovative and practically useful scientific approaches drawn from psychology, epidemiology and exercise physiology. The approach is interdisciplinary – it combines theories and methods from their individual disciplines in an innovative manner, within a public health framework. Their research to date has developed better methods for measuring people’s exercise habits and has provided new insights into how personal, social and environmental circumstances can make people less active. They have also shown how to design and deliver wide-reaching programs for different social groups and evaluated their effectiveness. Their new research program will build on and significantly extend these ideas and approaches into new areas.For example, they will develop new measures of incidental physical activity and sedentary behaviour and will develop and test new, complex community interventions.Their new program will involve in-depth study of some of the most challenging researchproblems in an important and under-researched area of public health. They will further combine their disciplines and the skills of their research team in new, creative and practical ways, to answer important research questions about physical activity and population health. These ideas and approaches will be used to identify practical ways to help more people to be more physically active.Read moreRead less