Electrocardiographic Assessment of National-Level Triathletes: Sinus Bradycardia and Other Electrocardiographic Abnormalities.

Background: High-intensity endurance training induces specific cardiac adaptations, often observed through electrocardiographic (ECG) changes. This study investigated the prevalence of ECG abnormalities in national-level Australian triathletes compared to sedentary controls.

Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted involving 22 triathletes and 7 sedentary controls.

Australian musculoskeletal physiotherapist's perceptions, attitudes and opinions towards pre-manipulative screening of the cervical spine prior to manual therapy: Report from the focus groups.

Background: The Australian Physiotherapy Association 2006 VBI Guidelines are used by many of the member organisations of IFOMPT. These Guidelines are due for revision incorporating recent research findings, international guides, and member's recommendations.

Purpose: To identify and consider Australian musculoskeletal physiotherapists' recommendations to inform revision of the 2006 VBI Guidelines.

Changing Roles of Health Information Managers: An Education Perspective.

Health information management graduates are employed across health, education, corporate and other sectors. Common to all health information management professionals are foundational skills and knowledge in health sciences, information and management. Unique to each individual is their ongoing education and professional development; professional growth motivated by interest, change and/or opportunity.

Adolescent aggression and imagery: contributions from object relations and social cognitive theory.

Object relations and social cognitive theory can be combined with the use of imagery in a self-control program with aggressive adolescents. Object relations provide a rationale for merging fantasy and reality processes while social cognitive theory (and its operationalization through cognitive behavioral therapy) provides a general framework in which behavioral and cognitive change techniques are utilized. This is embedded in a developmental paradigm that promotes the integration of the past, present, and future as a means of encouraging developmental maturity and identity.

Community-based rehabilitation: does it change community attitudes towards people with disability?

To achieve the goal of 'Health for All by the Year 2000' the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted an approach to rehabilitation described as community-based rehabilitation (CBR). A major objective of CBR is to develop positive community attitudes towards people with disabilities. To determine whether this objective can be achieved, post hoc measurement of attitudes towards people with disabilities was carried out in a community in which CBR had been established and in a control community.

Ectasia and fenestration of the anterior cerebral artery associated with persistent trigeminal artery: case report.

Multiple vascular anomalies in a 22-year-old patient who had signs and symptoms of vestibulocochlear dysfunction are reported. Angiography revealed a fenestration of the proximal segment of the left anterior cerebral artery, an ectasia of the left anterior and posterior cerebral arteries, and a persistence of the right trigeminal artery. The rarity of the association is documented, and the clinical significance is discussed.

A cross-cultural assessment of perceived health problems in the elderly.

To study cross-cultural differences in perceived health problems in the elderly the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) developed by Hunt et al. was administered to subjects from the People's Republic of China and Australia. The Australian stratum was further categorized according to cardiovascular status.

Stuttered and normal speech events in early childhood: the validity of a behavioral data language.

A set of 200 utterances from stuttering and normally speaking children aged 2-4 years was obtained. Each utterance contained a disfluency. A group of 5 sophisticated listeners assigned one of Johnson's eight disfluency categories to each of the 200 utterances.

Effects of anabolic steroids and high intensity exercise on rat skeletal muscle fibres and capillarization. A morphometric study.

The effects were investigated of high intensity short duration exercise and anabolic steroid treatment on the medial gastrocnemius muscle of female rats. Twelve rats were divided equally into four groups, exercise with and without steroid administration and sedentary with and without steroid administration. Animals were made to swim for 5 weeks, 6 days.

VO2max--new concepts on an old theme.

This symposium "VO2max--new concepts on an old theme" is dedicated to the memory of Hermann Rahn, whose inspiration has led many young investigators to explore new horizons. In the debate on factors limiting VO2max at altitude Hermann Rahn stimulated further discussion between those camps supporting the central circulation as limiting VO2max and those proposing a peripheral diffusion limitation.

Interobserver reliability using the Phonetic Level Evaluation with severely and profoundly hearing-impaired children.

This study examines whether observers reliably categorize selected speech production behaviors in hearing-impaired children. A group of experienced speech-language pathologists was trained to score the elicited imitations of 5 profoundly and 5 severely hearing-impaired subjects using the Phonetic Level Evaluation (Ling, 1976). Interrater reliability was calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients.

Perceived health problems in subjects with varying cardiovascular diagnoses.

To study perceived health problems in subjects with differing cardiovascular status, the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) was administered to 210 subjects 55 years of age and over. Subjects were categorized as being cardiovascular "Normals," being hypertensive, having isolated coronary artery disease, or both being hypertensive and having coronary artery disease. An analysis of variance between the four cardiovascular strata on each of the six subscales of the NHP yielded significant differences between the groups on the subscales Pain, Physical Mobility, Energy, and Social Isolation.

Sensitometric evaluation of some mammographic film-screen combinations.

The rapid expansion of screening and assessment mammography is due in part to recent advances in film and processing technology. This has been facilitated by the achievement of high contrast images at lower radiation dose levels. One of the recognised keys for this advancement has been the adoption of extended processing times when compared to regular radiographic processing.

Cystic cerebellar schwannoma: case report.

We report a case of cerebellar schwannoma in a 64-year-old woman. The tumor was defined on computed tomographic and magnetic resonance imaging scans and confirmed on surgery. The solid part of the tumor appeared to be derived from the inferior vermis of the cerebellum, the cystic part extending toward the medulla oblongata and the foramen magnum.

Duplication of the vertebro-basilar system.

During the examination of 75 fixed brains and 2086 vertebral angiograms we encountered two cases of fenestration of the vertebral artery and two cases of partial duplication of the basilar artery. In the first case, an 81 year old male, there was fenestration, of the basilar artery at the union of the two vertebral arteries. The fenestration was 9mm long with no associated vascular disease.

Overweight and television watching.

Recent work by several United States researchers has provided evidence of a direct correlation between obesity and hours of television viewing per day. This paper considers the association between obesity and hours of television viewing as well as the effect of various confounders on this association with an Australian population. A statistically significant association between amount of television viewing and overweight was found.

Reliability and agreement of ratings of ataxic dysarthric speech samples with varying intelligibility.

Indices of interjudge reliability and inter- and intrajudge agreement were calculated from the ratings made by 15 experienced speech clinicians on five deviant speech dimensions with respect to 15 speakers with ataxic dysarthria. Speakers were chosen to cover a wide range of speech intelligibility (16-97%) as measured by the sentence intelligibility transcriptions of the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech (Yorkston & Beukelman, 1981). Intraclass correlation coefficients derived from each judge on two occasions were above .

What are people like who respond to television offers of further information? The case of the Bodyshow series.

In some Western populations television is the principal source of health information. Such dependence on the media for health information is cause for concern when the reliability of health information is considered, and media promotion of 'unhealthy' products such as tobacco, alcohol and confectionery. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation television series Bodyshow, broadcast over 17 weeks in mid-1988, was the first general preventive health series screened on Australian television.

Towards a model for the provision of comprehensive services for non-English speaking communities.

People from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) tend to utilize Australian health and welfare services less than those people born in Australia. There is also evidence that migrants to Australia tend to increase their consumption of alcohol and other drugs once they have settled. Therefore, NESB people should be a priority focus for the provision of comprehensive services for the prevention and treatment of alcohol and other drug-related problems.

Frequency-specific auditory brainstem responses relationship to behavioural thresholds in cochlear-impaired adults.

Auditory brainstem response (ABR) thresholds to ipsilaterally masked tone pip stimuli were obtained from three groups of hearing-impaired subjects. Using high-pass (for 500-Hz tone pips) and notched noise (for 1-, 2- and 4-kHz tone pips), ABR thresholds in subjects with low-frequency, high-frequency or flat cochlear hearing losses were compared to conventional pure-tone audiometric thresholds. A strong positive relationship was found between ABR and behavioural threshold elevation.