Publications by authors named "Rachel Milte"

Article Synopsis
  • This study analyzed the effects of botulinum toxin-A on upper limb issues in chronic stroke survivors, focusing on those with significant spasticity.
  • The research involved 71 stroke survivors and measured changes in various outcomes, including upper limb activity, spasticity, and grip strength, before and three months after treatment.
  • Results showed no significant improvement in any of the measured outcomes, indicating that botulinum toxin-A may not be beneficial for improving upper limb function in this patient group with severe activity limitations.
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Purpose: Older people (aged ≥ 65 years) are significant users of health and social care systems. However, many outcome measures for quality assessment and economic evaluation lack content validation for this population. Cognitive interviews are a key approach for generating content validity evidence.

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Introduction: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the First Peoples of Australia. Up to 45% of dementia in these populations is due to potentially modifiable risk factors. The Dementia Prevention and Risk Management Program for Aboriginal Australians (DAMPAA) is an Aboriginal Health Practitioner led programme that aims to reduce cognitive decline and functional impairment in older Aboriginal people.

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Background: Children's physical activity and screen time behaviours impact their physical health and well-being. In Australia, less than half of children meet daily physical activity recommendations and only one-third meet daily screen time recommendations. Nearly half a million Australian school children aged 5-12 attend Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) weekly, activities undertaken at OSHC play a key role in meeting these recommendations.

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Background: Multicomponent interventions with carers of people with dementia demonstrate positive effects on the health and quality of life for carers and care recipients. The World Health Organization's iSupport for Dementia is an evidence-based online psychoeducation programme for carers. However, the programme was mainly implemented as a self-learning tool which might have limited its positive effects on carers and care recipients.

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More than half of older people in long-term care facilities have dementia. Little is currently known about the methods and instruments which can be used to capture the perspectives of older people, including those with dementia, regarding the quality of care provided in such facilities. The main aims of this scoping review were two-fold.

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The prevalence of dementia is increasing globally, with an estimated 139 million people expected to be living with dementia by 2050. Across numerous countries, substandard care for people with dementia is evident, with quality improvement needed. Recently, a focus on patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) has been utilised in healthcare services as a method of evaluating the care experiences provided and determining areas of improvement.

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The Quality of Care Experience Aged Care Consumers (QCE-ACC) is a new preference-based instrument recently adopted by the Australian government nationally as a new quality indicator for aged care. This study employed a discrete choice experiment (DCE) approach to develop an aged care user-specific value set for the QCE-ACC instrument. This is crucial for establishing the relative importance of key QCE-ACC dimensions for informing quality assessment and economic evaluation in aged care.

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Introduction: Rural and remote health workforces face longstanding challenges in Australia. Little is known about the economic effectiveness of workforce initiatives to increase recruitment and retention. A two-level allied health rural generalist pathway was introduced as a workforce strategy in regional local health networks (LHNs) in South Australia in 2019.

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Purpose: The Quality of Life-Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC), a valid preference-based instrument, has been rolled out in Australia as part of the National Quality Indicator (QI) program since April 2023 to monitor and benchmark the quality of life of aged care recipients. As the QOL-ACC is being used to collect quality of life data longitudinally as one of the key aged care QI indicators, it is imperative to establish the reliability of the QOL-ACC in aged care settings. Therefore, we aimed to assess the reliability of the QOL-ACC and compare its performance with the EQ-5D-5L.

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Objectives: The Quality of Life-Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC) is an aged-care-specific preference-based instrument currently being rolled out in residential care across Australia as part of the aged care Quality Indicator program. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the feasibility, reliability, and construct validity of the QOL-ACC in a large national sample of older adults receiving aged care services at home.

Methods: Older adults receiving in-home aged care services completed a survey including the QOL-ACC, Quality of Care Experience-ACC, adult social care outcome tool, EQ-5D-5L, and 2 global single item measures of health and quality of life.

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Background: Quality of life is an important quality indicator for health and aged care sectors. However, self-reporting of quality of life is not always possible given the relatively high prevalence of cognitive impairment amongst older people, hence proxy reporting is often utilised as the default option. Internationally, there is little evidence on the impact of proxy perspective on interrater agreement between self and proxy report.

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Introduction: This feasibility study aims to develop and test a new model of practice in Australia using digital technologies to enable pharmacists to monitor early signs and symptoms of medicine-induced harms in residential aged care.

Methods And Analysis: Thirty residents will be recruited from an aged care facility in South Australia. The study will be conducted in two phases.

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Background: Quality-of-life is an essential outcome for quality assessment and economic evaluation in health and social care. The-Quality-of-Life - Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC) is a new preference-based quality-of-life measure, psychometrically validated with older people in aged care. More evidence is needed to inform the self-report reliability of the QOL-ACC in older people with varying levels of cognitive impairment and dementia.

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Objectives: No guidance currently exists as to the cognition threshold beyond which self-reported quality of life for older people with cognitive impairment and dementia is unreliable.

Methods: Older aged care residents (≥ 65 years) were randomly assigned to complete the EQ-5D-5L in computer-based (eye movements were tracked) or hard copy (participants were encouraged to 'think aloud') format. Cognition was assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).

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Background: This protocol describes a study of the effectiveness of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for reducing depressive symptoms in older adults living in residential aged care (RAC) facilities in Australia. Depressive symptoms are highly prevalent in this population, yet the benefits of CBT for reducing such symptoms in RAC facilities have not been widely investigated. Elders at Ease (ELATE) is a 16-session CBT intervention designed for implementation in RAC facilities.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers observed eye fixation patterns while participants, grouped by cognitive status, completed the EQ-5D-5L survey, revealing that individuals without cognitive impairment engaged more with the response options.
  • * Findings suggest that eye tracking can help identify challenges in self-reporting HRQoL for older adults, providing valuable insights into how cognitive impairment affects their engagement with assessment tools.
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Purpose: Self-Reporting using traditional text-based Quality-of-Life (QoL) instruments can be difficult for people living with sensory impairments, communication challenges or changes to their cognitive capacity. Adapted communication techniques, such as Easy-Read techniques, or use of pictures could remove barriers to participation for a wide range of people. This review aimed to identify published studies reporting adapted communication approaches for measuring QoL, the methodology used in their development and validation among adult populations.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study explored the meaning of quality of life for older adults (67 to 99 years) in residential care, involving 43 participants through semi-structured interviews across six facilities in Australia.
  • - Key findings revealed that both physical and psycho-social aspects contribute significantly to quality of life, with six main domains identified: independence, mobility, pain management, social connections, emotional well-being, and activities.
  • - The authors emphasize the importance of further research with diverse older adult populations to improve quality of life measurements and enhance care practices based on the identified domains.
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A multitude of weight loss diets exist. However, no one diet has been proven to be superior, despite their claims. Resultingly, this creates confusion amongst consumers and conflicting nutrition messages.

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Objective: This paper reports on the valuation of the classification system for the Quality-of-Life Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC) instrument using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) with duration with a large sample of older people receiving aged care services.

Methods: A DCE with 160 choice sets of two quality-of-life state-survival duration combinations blocked into 20 survey versions, with eight choice sets in each version, was designed and administered through an on-line survey to older Australians receiving aged care services in home and via interviewer facilitation with older people in residential aged care settings. Model specifications investigating preferences with respect to survival duration and interactions between QOL-ACC dimension levels were estimated.

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Introduction: After traumatic injuries community participation is a common goal, promoting wellbeing and independence. Community mobility and transportation influence an individual's independence in community participation. With the ability to drive safely often compromised after traumatic injuries, the adverse consequences of driving cessation include a loss of identity and reduced participation in chosen activities.

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Background: The majority of people with dementia are cared for by their family members. However, family carers are often unprepared for their caring roles, receiving less education and support compared with professional carers. The consequences are their reduced mental and physical health and wellbeing, and that of care recipients.

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Purpose: Quality of life is an important person-centred outcome in health and aged care settings. Due to an increasing prevalence of cognitive decline and dementia in ageing populations, a proportion of older people receiving health and aged care services may not be able to reliably assess their own quality of life, highlighting the need for proxy assessment. This systematic review sought to investigate the level of agreement between self and proxy-report of older people's quality of life using established preference-based instruments of quality of life suitable for economic evaluation.

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