Heat illness presentations to emergency departments in Western Sydney: surveillance for environmental, personal and behavioural risk factors.

Objective: To pilot surveillance to describe environmental, personal and behavioural risk factors for people presenting to hospital emergency departments (EDs) with heat illness.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective case series and telephone interview study of people presenting to EDs across South Western Sydney, Western Sydney and Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health Districts with heat illness over the 2017/18 and 2018/19 summer periods (1 December to 28 February). We used the Public Health Rapid Emergency Disease Syndromic Surveillance (PHREDSS) 'heat problems' syndrome to identify people with heat illness and medical records to find contact details.

Epidemiology of syphilis in the Nepean and Blue Mountains Local Health District between 1 October 2009 and 30 September 2019.

Background: Syphilis is a nationally notifiable sexually transmitted infection (STI). Rates of syphilis notifications have been on the increase in Australia. Given these increases, we wanted to study the epidemiological trends of syphilis notifications in the Nepean Blue Mountain Local Health District (NBMLHD) over a ten-year period across different healthcare settings.

Lessons Learnt From Exercise Celestial Navigation: The Application of a Geographic Information System to Inform Legionnaires' Disease Control Activity.

Geographic information systems (GIS) have emerged in the past few decades as a technology capable of assisting in the control of infectious disease outbreaks. A Legionnaires' disease cluster investigation in May 2016 in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, demonstrated the importance of using GIS to identify at-risk water sources in real-time for field investigation to help control any immediate environmental health risk, as well as the need for more staff trained in the use of this technology. Sydney Local Health District Public Health Unit (PHU) subsequently ran an exercise (based on this investigation) with 11 staff members from 4 PHUs across Sydney to further test staff capability to use GIS across NSW.

An influenza prophylaxis clinic in a primary school: 24 hours from notification to protection.

A public health clinic was established to provide antiviral prophylaxis to school contacts during the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza outbreak in NSW, Australia. Children (n = 74) and staff (n = 9) were provided with antiviral (oseltamivir) prophylaxis following exposure to a confirmed case of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza. The success of the clinic included attention to infection control and quarantining of potentially infectious children and staff, attendance at the clinic of pharmacists to ensure accurate dispensing of suspension medication, availability of experienced public health staff at short notice, and provision of accurate information to staff, school children and families attending the clinic.

A community outbreak of meningococcal serogroup B disease in western Sydney: the challenges of identification and significance.

The Communicable Diseases Network Australia guidelines provide information for early clinical and public health management of meningococcal disease, including community outbreaks. While community outbreaks of meningococcal serogroup C infections have been reported, community outbreaks of meningococcal serogroup B infections have not been declared in Australia. Three cases of meningococcal serogroup B disease occurred in 2 adjacent suburbs in western Sydney in Spring 2008.

A randomized controlled trial of cognitive behavior therapy, relaxation training, and routine clinical care for the irritable bowel syndrome.

Objectives: Psychological treatments are considered to be useful in the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), although the evidence is based on small, often flawed trials. Although cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and relaxation therapy have both been promising, we hypothesized that CBT would be superior to relaxation and standard care alone in IBS patients. The objective of this study was to test this assumption by comparing the effects of cognitive behavior therapy with relaxation therapy and routine clinical care alone in individuals with IBS.

Factor analysis of the components of 12 standard test batteries, for unilateral spatial neglect, reveals that they contain a number of discrete and important clinical variables.

The aim of this study was to investigate a conventional battery of tests capable of assessing the presence of the component and extent of the lesions in patients with unilateral spatial neglect. Ninety-four patients who had unilateral spatial neglect with a stroke in right hemisphere were assessed on 12 traditional neglect batteries 4 weeks after the onset. Computerized tomography was also performed to investigate the possible anatomical relationships with each neglect battery.

Apraxia and cerebral haemorrhage: the relationship between haematoma volume and prognosis.

In this study, we examined twenty-five patients with left putaminal haemorrhage to investigate the relations between ideational apraxia (IA) and intracerebral haemorrhage. Apraxias were determined at 1 and 6 months after the stroke onset. Extension and volume of haematoma were examined with CT scan within 2 days of stroke onset.

Lifestyle factors affecting bone ultrasonometry of the calcaneus in Japanese women.

Ultrasonometry is increasingly used to assess bone characteristics. A group of 1412 women with a mean age of 57 years attended a screening examination in a Japanese city. Seventy-four percent of participants were postmenopausal.

Functional outcome following thalamic haemorrhage: relationship between motor and cognitive functions and ADL.

Twenty-two patients with thalamic haemorrhage were examined to investigate the relationship between motor and cognitive function, and activities of daily living (ADL). Patients with unilateral spatial neglect had lower ADL scores on admission than patients without unilateral spatial neglect (Mean: 17.0 and 24.

Buccofacial apraxia and left cerebral haemorrhage.

We examined 33 patients with left intracerebral haemorrhage to investigate the relations to buccofacial apraxia (BFA). BFA was present in 18 cases at 1 month and disappeared in 3 cases and persisted in 15 cases at 6 month from the onset. The existence of BFA seems to be partially dependent the haematoma volume which may cause the organic damage in lenticulate nucleus, insula, posterior limb or internal capsule and anterior portion of paraventricle white matter.

Is unilateral spatial neglect a single phenomenon? A comparative study between exploratory-motor and visual-counting tests.

The aim of this study is to report the preliminary findings of a traditional battery of tests and our original battery capable of assessing the presence of components and extent of lesions in patients with unilateral spatial neglect. Thirty patients who had unilateral spatial neglect with a stroke in the right hemisphere were assessed for unilateral spatial neglect on exploratory-motor (E-M) tasks, visual-counting (V-C) tasks, and traditional neglect batteries at least 4 weeks after the onset. Other neuropsychological tests and computed tomography were also performed to investigate the relationship with neglect.

The influence of bladder management on fertility in spinal cord injured males.

Male infertility is a well recognised problem following spinal cord injury. The techniques of vibration induced ejaculation and transrectal electroejaculation have significantly increased the likelihood of sperm retrieval in spinal cord injured males; however, the reproductive capacity remains markedly reduced due to poor semen quality. The Spinal Injuries Unit at Royal North Shore Hospital has developed a programme to achieve seminal emission and enhance fertility.

Using Functional Independence Measure profiles as an index of outcome in the rehabilitation of brain-injured patients.

Rehabilitation preserves and restores everyday functions in people who have disabilities. Functional change for patients undergoing a rehabilitation program is the best measure of the effectiveness of the rehabilitation program. One tool used for measuring function is the Functional Independence Measure (FIM).

Temporal regularity of tapping by the left and right hands in timed and untimed finger tapping.

The temporal characteristics of repetitive finger tapping by the left and right hands were examined in two experiments. In the first experiment, interresponse intervals (IRIs) were recorded while right-handed male subjects tapped in synchrony with an auditory timing pulse (the synchronization phase) and then attempted to maintain the same tapping rate without the timing pulses (the continuation phase). The left and right hands performed separately, at four different rates (interpulse intervals of 250, 500, 750, and 1500 ms).