Effective communication is an essential of everyday life, and stuttering impairs this function. Stuttering has been shown to cause social maladjustment and to hinder attainment of occupational potential. There is an effective treatment available for preschool children who stutter, and this treatment can prevent the problems of stuttering later in life. The treatment depends on regular, weekly, face-to-face sessions with a speech pathologist. However, thirty percent of Australian children live ru ....Effective communication is an essential of everyday life, and stuttering impairs this function. Stuttering has been shown to cause social maladjustment and to hinder attainment of occupational potential. There is an effective treatment available for preschool children who stutter, and this treatment can prevent the problems of stuttering later in life. The treatment depends on regular, weekly, face-to-face sessions with a speech pathologist. However, thirty percent of Australian children live rurally, and are receiving inadequate access to this important health service. This research is a randomised controlled trial of a telehealth intervention for early stuttering. The telehealth intervention is a new procedure where the speech pathologist uses the telephone and other communication methods to deliver the treatment to isolated families with a stuttering child.Read moreRead less
Home-based Speech Treatment For Parkinsons Disease Via Telerehabilitation : Clinical And Economic Outcomes.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$485,793.00
Summary
Parkinson's Disease affects a person's ability to speak clearly. Speech pathologists can provide effective treatment for this speech disorder. Access to a speech pathologist, however, is difficult for many people with Parkinson's Disease due to their physical difficulties and the limited availability of speech pathology services in rural areas. This study demonstrates the use of telerehabilitation to deliver speech treatment to people with Parkinson's Disease in their own homes via the Internet.
ONLINE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM TO PROVIDE SPECIALIST CARE TO RURAL, REMOTE AND UNDESERVED REGIONS
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$360,475.00
Summary
Our aim is to develop and validate an online health care system to link remote and rural health professionals, facilities and patients into an online community. The proposed online system will provide medical advice and diagnosis, consumer health care information services, support groups, information and distance education for those working in the health care as well as the community and assistance in the operational and medical decision-making process. Less expensive health care personnel shoul ....Our aim is to develop and validate an online health care system to link remote and rural health professionals, facilities and patients into an online community. The proposed online system will provide medical advice and diagnosis, consumer health care information services, support groups, information and distance education for those working in the health care as well as the community and assistance in the operational and medical decision-making process. Less expensive health care personnel should be able to use the system with little training in remote and rural areas. This project will generate knowledge about the practicality of low cost but highly effective e-health system. It will be easier to disseminate health care information and health evaluation processes to patients, doctors, nurses and other health care workers. It will also be possible to obtain information about image resolution, suitable compression algorithms and compression levels for different diseases pathologies.Read moreRead less
Enhancing Efficacy Of Bibliotherapy For Rural Children With Anxiety Disorders Using Child-therapist Contact
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$482,798.00
Summary
Many Australian children suffering severe anxiety live in areas where access to qualified therapists is limited. In previous research we developed an outreach program in which parents were taught to help their own child overcome their anxiety through a mixture of printed materials and remote access to a therapist. In the current project we aim to extend these results by incorporating the child into the remote treatment, and in doing so improving the number of children who benefit from treatment
A Randomised Controlled Trial Of Internet-based Therapy For Panic Disorder.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$202,575.00
Summary
Approximately 9.7% of the adult population have an anxiety disorder with one of the more common, panic disorder, often with agoraphobia, afflicting 2.4% of the community. Around 8% of patients consulting a GP also have panic disorder (PD). A further 10% of the community experience spontaneous panic, but do not have full PD (termed non-clinical panic). People with PD frequently experience clinical depression, about 15% abuse alcohol and non-prescription drugs and PD is associated with an increase ....Approximately 9.7% of the adult population have an anxiety disorder with one of the more common, panic disorder, often with agoraphobia, afflicting 2.4% of the community. Around 8% of patients consulting a GP also have panic disorder (PD). A further 10% of the community experience spontaneous panic, but do not have full PD (termed non-clinical panic). People with PD frequently experience clinical depression, about 15% abuse alcohol and non-prescription drugs and PD is associated with an increased risk of suicide. Over time people with PD appear to have an increased risk of heart problems. They also have substantial financial burdens through multiple attendances at doctors' rooms and through restricted employment opportunities. Only just over one in four people with an anxiety disorder consults a health professional for their problems, with most going to their GP. It has been estimated that less than 10% of these people seek the services of a mental health specialist such as a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. Therefore because of blocks to do with access, cost or embarrassment, many people with mental health problems do not seek face-to-face specialised mental health treatment. People in rural and regional Australia are particularly disadvantaged by limited access to these specialists. We have developed an internet-based treatment program on panic and anxiety for people in the community, and particularly in regional Australia. Early evaluation of this program has found it is more effective than other types of therapist-assisted self-help treatment. The aim of this research project is to compare it to best-practice face-to-face psychological and pharmacological treatment for PD. If the effectiveness of our internet-based treatment is comparable to best-practice face-to-face treatment, its availability will assist the many Australians who suffer from debilitating panic but who are unable to access specialised mental health assistance.Read moreRead less
Living In A Rural Community: A Longitudinal Study Of The Course And Outcome Of Mental Health And Wellbeing.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$841,947.00
Summary
This unique rural Australian study will investigate individual, family and community factors associated with the mental health and wellbeing of residents in rural communities of New South Wales. It aims to identify factors that may maintain or promote mental health, thereby investigating the potential protective effect of community factors, as well as more proximal social factors (such as family-household attributes and responses) on dimensions of mental health and wellbeing among rural people.
Telerehabilitation: Assessing Acquired Neurogenic Communication Disorders Online.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$172,446.00
Summary
People who suffer brain damage as a result of a stroke, head injury, or a disorder such as Parkinson's disease frequently develop difficulty in either speaking, writing, reading, or understanding the spoken language. As a result, the person's ability to communicate with his or her family and friends, and the community in general is seriously affected. Individuals who experience these speech and language disorders are treated by a speech pathologist who focuses on improving the person's ability t ....People who suffer brain damage as a result of a stroke, head injury, or a disorder such as Parkinson's disease frequently develop difficulty in either speaking, writing, reading, or understanding the spoken language. As a result, the person's ability to communicate with his or her family and friends, and the community in general is seriously affected. Individuals who experience these speech and language disorders are treated by a speech pathologist who focuses on improving the person's ability to communicate. The treatment of these disorders is frequently long-term requiring speech pathology management beyond existing hospital care. For many people with these communication disorders, accessing speech pathology services after their discharge from hospital may be very difficult due to their physical difficulties, the distances they are required to travel, and the limited availability of speech pathologists in their local community. This project aims to overcome these access issues through the development of a telerehabilitation system that will enable speech pathologists to assess people with these speech and language difficulties across the Internet using videoconferencing. It is intended that this research will ultimately enable people with these types of communication difficulties to be assessed and treated within their own home or local community.Read moreRead less
Incidence And Outcome Of Stroke In Rural South Australia
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$735,541.00
Summary
We propose to undertake a population-based study of the incidence, management and outcome of stroke (survival, disability, recurrent stroke) in geographically defined segments of rural South Australia and compare these with equivalent data, collected during the same period in a defined sector of metropolitan Adelaide. It is hard to over-state the value of this information for planning health services of many kinds for the next decade.