Psychiatric admissions in young people after expiration of criminal justice supervision in Australia: a retrospective data linkage study.

Background: Mental health services are available for young people involved with the criminal justice system. However, they have unmet mental health needs after the expiration of criminal justice supervision.

Objective: To determine the incidence rate and identify predictors of psychiatric hospitalisations within 24 months after the expiration of criminal justice supervision among young people involved with the New South Wales (NSW) criminal justice system.

The (K-MPAI): Scale construction, cross-cultural validation, theoretical underpinnings, and diagnostic and therapeutic utility.

I commenced my academic exploration of music performance anxiety in a study with opera chorus artists from Opera Australia in 2004. I subsequently postulated a new theory of the aetiology of music performance anxiety and began the development of the (K-MPAI) to assess the hypothesized theoretical constructs underpinning its diverse clinical presentations. I proposed a new definition of music performance anxiety in 2009 and revised the item content of the K-MPAI from 26 to 40 in 2011.

Singing as an adjunct therapy for children and adults with cystic fibrosis.

Background: Cystic fibrosis is a genetically inherited, life-threatening condition that affects major organs. The management of cystic fibrosis involves a multi-faceted daily treatment regimen that includes airway clearance techniques, pancreatic enzymes and other medications. Previous studies have found that compliance with this intensive treatment is poor, especially among adolescents.

Traumatic brain injury is highly associated with self-reported childhood trauma within a juvenile offender cohort.

Primary Objective: To identify correlates of past traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a population of young offenders.

Research Design: Cross-sectional analyses were conducted on available data from a sample derived from the NSW Young People on Community Orders Health Survey.

Procedures: Study participants were administered questionnaires to collect history relating to past TBI, childhood trauma, substance abuse, and psychological/psychiatric symptoms and underwent assessments of intellectual functioning.

Effects of Aging on Musical Performance in Professional Orchestral Musicians.

Background: The physical and psychological demands of playing a musical instrument are likely to be affected by age-related decline in function, including physical, cognitive, psychological, and organ-related changes. However, the complex neurophysiological demands of playing a musical instrument may delay many normal aging-related changes.

Aim: This study compared professional classical musicians of different ages, using a range of physical and psychological measures, to discover how increasing age might affect work performance and to identify possible risk and protective factors for physical and psychological health as the musicians age.

Gender Differences in Mortality and Morbidity Patterns in Popular Musicians Across the Lifespan.

Recent studies have highlighted the disturbing morbidity and early mortality of popular musicians. Most of the studies have focused on male musicians because, until recently, there were relatively few female popular musicians on which to base a population study. With the sharp increase in female popular musicians from fewer than 2% in the 1950s to 32% in the current decade, researchers are better able to examine the health status and mortality profile of female popular musicians.

Identifying attachment ruptures underlying severe music performance anxiety in a professional musician undertaking an assessment and trial therapy of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP).

Introduction: Kenny has proposed that severe music performance anxiety that is unresponsive to usual treatments such as cognitive-behaviour therapy may be one manifestation of unresolved attachment ruptures in early life. Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy specifically targets early relationship trauma. Accordingly, a trial of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy with severely anxious musicians was implemented to assess whether resolution of attachment ruptures resulted in clinically significant relief from music performance anxiety.

Singing as an adjunct therapy for children and adults with cystic fibrosis.

Background: Cystic fibrosis is a genetically inherited, life-threatening condition that affects major organs. The management of cystic fibrosis involves a multi-faceted daily treatment regimen that includes airway clearance techniques, pancreatic enzymes and other medications. Previous studies have found that compliance with this intensive treatment is poor, especially among adolescents.

Life Expectancy and Cause of Death in Popular Musicians: Is the Popular Musician Lifestyle the Road to Ruin?

Does a combination of lifestyle pressures and personality, as reflected in genre, lead to the early death of popular musicians? We explored overall mortality, cause of death, and changes in patterns of death over time and by music genre membership in popular musicians who died between 1950 and 2014. The death records of 13,195 popular musicians were coded for age and year of death, cause of death, gender, and music genre. Musician death statistics were compared with age-matched deaths in the US population using actuarial methods.

Is Playing in the Pit Really the Pits?: Pain, Strength, Music Performance Anxiety, and Workplace Satisfaction in Professional Musicians in Stage, Pit, and Combined Stage/Pit Orchestras.

Introduction: Typically, Australian orchestral musicians perform on stage, in an orchestra pit, or in a combination of both workplaces. This study explored a range of physical and mental health indicators in musicians who played in these different orchestra types to ascertain whether orchestra environment was a risk factor affecting musician wellbeing.

Methods: Participants comprised 380 full-time orchestral musicians from the eight major state orchestras in Australia comprised of two dedicated pit orchestras, three stage-only symphonic orchestras, and three mixed stage/pit orchestras.

Minimization of Childhood Maltreatment Is Common and Consequential: Results from a Large, Multinational Sample Using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire.

Childhood maltreatment has diverse, lifelong impact on morbidity and mortality. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) is one of the most commonly used scales to assess and quantify these experiences and their impact. Curiously, despite very widespread use of the CTQ, scores on its Minimization-Denial (MD) subscale-originally designed to assess a positive response bias-are rarely reported.

Assessing Linearity in the Loudness Envelope of the Messa di Voce Singing Exercise Through Acoustic Signal Analysis.

Messa di voce (MDV) is a singing exercise that involves sustaining a single pitch with a linear change in loudness from silence to maximum intensity (the crescendo part) and back to silence again (the decrescendo part), with time symmetry between the two parts. Previous studies have used the sound pressure level (SPL, in decibels) of a singer's voice to measure loudness, so as to assess the linearity of each part-an approach that has limitations due to loudness and SPL not being linearly related. This article studies the loudness envelope shapes of MDVs, comparing the SPL approach with approaches that are more closely related to human loudness perception.

Vocal Qualities in Music Theater Voice: Perceptions of Expert Pedagogues.

Objectives/hypothesis: To gather qualitative descriptions of music theater vocal qualities including belt, legit, and mix from expert pedagogues to better define this voice type.

Study Design: This is a prospective, semistructured interview.

Methods: Twelve expert teachers from United States, United Kingdom, Asia, and Australia were interviewed by Skype and asked to identify characteristics of music theater vocal qualities including vocal production, physiology, esthetics, pitch range, and pedagogical techniques.

Vibrato changes following imagery.

Objectives: This study investigated acoustic change in singers' vibrato following imagery and non-imagery tasks.

Study Design: The study used a fully randomized cross-over (six conditions × two times) block design, in which each singer received each intervention in random order. Data were analyzed using the general linear model (GLM).

Sound Practice-improving occupational health and safety for professional orchestral musicians in Australia.

The Sound Practice Project is a 5-year study involving baseline evaluation, development, and implementation of musician-specific work health and safety initiatives. A cross-sectional population physical and psychological survey and physical assessment were conducted at the same time, with an auditory health assessment conducted later. The results were used to guide the development of a series of targeted interventions, encompassing physical, psychological, and auditory health components.

Singing as an adjunct therapy for children and adults with cystic fibrosis.

Background: Cystic fibrosis is a genetically inherited, life-threatening condition that affects major organs. The management of cystic fibrosis involves a multi-faceted daily treatment regimen that includes airway clearance techniques, pancreatic enzymes and other medications. Previous studies have found that compliance with this intensive treatment is poor, especially among adolescents.

Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy for severe music performance anxiety: assessment, process, and outcome of psychotherapy with a professional orchestral musician.

This paper reports on the process and outcome of therapy using intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) with a professional musician who had suffered severe music performance anxiety over the course of his entire 30-year career. In this paper, we describe the nature of the therapy, the case history of the musician, the first assessment and trial therapy session, and the course and successful outcome of therapy. The patient underwent 10 sessions of ISTDP over a period of 4 months.

Change in messa di voce characteristics during 3 years of classical singing training at the tertiary level.

A 3-year longitudinal study was conducted to investigate changes in vocal quality as a result of singing training at a tertiary level conservatorium in Australia. Singers performed a messa di voce (MDV) at intervals of 6 months over the 3-year period of training. The study investigated the evolving acoustic features of the singers' voices exhibited during the MDV, including sound pressure level (SPL), short-term energy ratio (STER), duration, and vibrato parameters of the fundamental frequency (F0), SPL, and STER.

Towards a method for loudness-based analysis of the sound of one's own voice.

This paper outlines the steps in objectively estimating the time-varying loudness of one's own voice in a room (i.e. autophonic loudness).

Singer and listener perception of vocal warm-up.

Objectives: This study investigated changes perceived by singers and listeners after the singers had vocally warmed up.

Study Design: The study used a repeated measures within-subject design to assess changes in vibrato quality from pre (nonwarmed-up voice) to post (warmed-up voice) test. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated to assess singers' self-ratings pre- and posttest and intra- and interlistener rater reliability.

Musculoskeletal pain and injury in professional orchestral musicians in Australia.

Unlabelled: This paper reports on the major findings from the questionnaire component of a cross-sectional survey of the musicians in Australia's eight fulltime professional symphonic and pit orchestras, focusing on performance-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs).

Methods: All musician members of the orchestras participating in this project were invited to complete a self-report survey. The overall response rate was about 70% (n = 377).

Vocal warm-up produces acoustic change in singers' vibrato rate.

Vibrato rate and vibrato extent were acoustically assessed in 12 classically trained female singers before and after 25 minutes of vocal warm-up exercises. Vocal warm-up produced three notable changes in vibrato rate: (1) more regularity in the cyclic undulations comprising the vibrato rate of a note, (2) more stability in mean vibrato rates from one sustained note to the next, and (3) a moderating of excessively fast and excessively slow mean vibrato rates. No significant change was found for vibrato extent.

Ergonomic Training Reduces Musculoskeletal Disorders among Office Workers: Results from the 6-Month Follow-Up.

Background: Musculoskeletal disorders are commonly reported among computer users. This study explored whether these disorders can be reduced by the provision of ergonomics education.

Methods: A cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted in which 3 units were randomised for intervention and received training, and 3 units were given a leaflet.

Incidence of injury and attitudes to injury management in skilled flute players.

Objective: The flute is a highly popular instrument, yet little is known about the potential injury association with playing this instrument.

Participants: Twenty flautists from a major music training institution volunteered to participate in this project, and had played the flute for a minimum of ten years.

Methods: A specifically designed musicians' health questionnaire was used to determine injury rates in a group of skilled collegiate flute players majoring in music to examine self-reported perceptions of performance-related musculoskeletal disorder causation and approaches to managing these conditions.