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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Understanding And Benchmarking Health Service Achievement Of Policy Goals For Chronic Disease, Erica Bell, Bastian Seidel Jan 2012

Understanding And Benchmarking Health Service Achievement Of Policy Goals For Chronic Disease, Erica Bell, Bastian Seidel

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Background Key challenges in benchmarking health service achievement of policy goals in areas such as chronic disease are: 1) developing indicators and understanding how policy goals might work as indicators of service performance; 2) developing methods for economically collecting and reporting stakeholder perceptions; 3) combining and sharing data about the performance of organizations; 4) interpreting outcome measures; 5) obtaining actionable benchmarking information. This study aimed to explore how a new Boolean-based small-N method from the social sciences—Qualitative Comparative Analysis or QCA—could contribute to meeting these internationally shared challenges. Methods A ‘multi-value QCA’ (MVQCA) analysis was conducted of data from 24 …


Short And Long Sleep Duration Are Associated With Prevalent Cardiovascular Disease In Australian Adults, Christopher A. Magee, Len Kritharides, John Attia, Patrick Mcelduff, Emily Banks Jan 2012

Short And Long Sleep Duration Are Associated With Prevalent Cardiovascular Disease In Australian Adults, Christopher A. Magee, Len Kritharides, John Attia, Patrick Mcelduff, Emily Banks

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

A growing number of studies from a range of different countries have observed an association between sleep duration and cardiovascular disease. The objective of this paper was to examine the associations between sleep duration and prevalent cardiovascular disease in a large sample of Australian adults, and identify the sociodemographic and health-related factors moderating these associations. Participants included 218 155 Australian adults aged 45 years and over. The results indicated that 6 h versus 7 h sleep was associated with increased odds of heart disease [odds ratio (OR) = 1.11 (1.06–1.17)], diabetes [OR = 1.15 (1.09–1.22)], stroke [OR = 1.25 (1.14–1.38)] …


Is Seladin-1 Really A Selective Alzheimer's Disease Indicator?, Laura J. Sharpe, Jenny Wong, Brett Garner, Glenda M. Halliday, Andrew J. Brown Jan 2012

Is Seladin-1 Really A Selective Alzheimer's Disease Indicator?, Laura J. Sharpe, Jenny Wong, Brett Garner, Glenda M. Halliday, Andrew J. Brown

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Selective Alzheimer's Disease Indicator-1 (Seladin-1) was originally identified by its down-regulation in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Here, we re-examine existing data and present new gene expression data that refutes its role as a selective AD indicator. Furthermore, we caution against the use of the name “Seladin-1” and instead recommend adoption of the approved nomenclature, 3β-hydroxysterol Δ24-reductase (or DHCR24), which describes its catalytic function in cholesterol synthesis. Further work is required to determine what link, if any, exists between DHCR24 and AD.


Guidelines For The Management Of Absolute Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Leonard F. Arnolda Jan 2012

Guidelines For The Management Of Absolute Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Leonard F. Arnolda

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

The National Vascular Disease Prevention Alliance (NVDPA) is an alliance of four leading and well-known Australian charities: Diabetes Australia, the National Heart Foundation of Australia, Kidney Health Australia and the National Stroke Foundation. In 2000, these four charities began to work together to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease in Australia. Much of the work of the NVDPA to date has been to promote the use of an 'absolute risk' approach to predicting risk of cardiovascular disease. The NVDPA advocates to government and professional bodies for a health system that supports an absolute risk approach. The NVDPA aims to raise …


Amyloid Beta Selectively Modulates Neuronal Trkb Alternative Transcript Expression With Implications For Alzheimer's Disease, J Wong, M Higgins, G Halliday, B Garner Jan 2012

Amyloid Beta Selectively Modulates Neuronal Trkb Alternative Transcript Expression With Implications For Alzheimer's Disease, J Wong, M Higgins, G Halliday, B Garner

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Dysregulation in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)/full-length TrkB (TrkB-TK+) signaling is implicated in promoting neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease (AD). BDNF/TrkB-TK+ signaling can be modulated by the presence of truncated TrkB isoforms (TrkB-TK-, TrkB-Shc). All TrkB isoforms are encoded by different alternative transcripts. In this study, we assessed if expression of the three main TrkB alternative transcripts, TrkB-TK+, TrkB-TK-, and TrkB-Shc are altered in AD. Using a cohort of control and AD brains (n=29), we surveyed the hippocampus, temporal cortex, occipital cortex, and cerebellum and found specific increases in TrkB-Shc, a neuron-specific transcript, in the AD hippocampus. No significant changes were detected …


Srp20 Regulates Trkb Pre-Mrna Splicing To Generate Trkb-Shc Transcripts With Implications For Alzheimer's Disease, Jenny Wong, Brett Garner, Glenda M. Halliday, John B.J Kwok Jan 2012

Srp20 Regulates Trkb Pre-Mrna Splicing To Generate Trkb-Shc Transcripts With Implications For Alzheimer's Disease, Jenny Wong, Brett Garner, Glenda M. Halliday, John B.J Kwok

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Previously, we reported elevated levels of the neuronspecific tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) transcript, TrkB- sarc homology containing (Shc) in the hippocampus of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains. In this study, we determined how TrkB-Shc transcripts are increased in AD. Utilizing a TrkB minigene transiently transfected into SHSY5Y cells, we found increased exon 19 inclusion in TrkB minigene transcripts (to generate TrkB-Shc) following cellular exposure to amyloid beta 1–42 (Ab42). As this suggested altered TrkB pre-mRNA splicing in AD, we conducted an in silico screening for putative splice regulatory protein-binding sites in the intron/exon splice regulatory regions of exons 18 and …


Factors Associated With Chronic Kidney Disease Progression In Australian Nephrology Practices, Neil Boudville, Anna Kemp, Henry Moody, Robert G. Fassett, Eugenie Pedagogos, Craig Nelson, Helen Healy, George Mangos, Geoff Kirkland, Troy Kay, Paul Champion De Crespigny, David Hoffman, David Waugh Jan 2012

Factors Associated With Chronic Kidney Disease Progression In Australian Nephrology Practices, Neil Boudville, Anna Kemp, Henry Moody, Robert G. Fassett, Eugenie Pedagogos, Craig Nelson, Helen Healy, George Mangos, Geoff Kirkland, Troy Kay, Paul Champion De Crespigny, David Hoffman, David Waugh

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Background/Aims: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major health issue worldwide. The aim of this study was to explore factors associated with CKD progression in Australian nephrology practices. Methods: This was a retrospective study utilising an electronic medical record (EMR), Audit4 (Software for Specialists, Australia). The baseline visit was defined as the first entry into the EMR. The primary outcome was the rate of change in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Results: 1,328 patients were included with a mean eGFR at baseline of 37.4 ± 0.7 ml/min/1.73 m2, a mean follow-up of 17.7 months and a mean annual rate of …