Dementia in Australia Report

Dementia in Australia has been released by the AIHW today. In 2011, there were an estimated 298,000 people with dementia, 62% of whom were women. This number is expected to increase markedly over time, with projections suggesting it will reach around 400,000 by 2020 and 900,000 by 2050. Dementia is a leading cause of death and burden of disease, accounting for 6% of all deaths in 2010, and for people over 65, being the second leading cause of overall burden of disease. The total direct health and aged care services expenditure on people with dementia was at least $4.9 billion in 2009-10, and it is estimated that there are around 200,000 informal carers of people with dementia living in the community.

Australian (illicit) drug policy timeline 1985-2012

This paper, from the National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre, provides a list of key events, policy and legislative changes that have occurred in Australia since 1985, when the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse was adopted, and methadone was nationally endorsed as an appropriate treatment intervention. Events are listed by jurisdiction, at the national and state/territory level. Illicit drugs refer to cannabis, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, ecstasy, hallucinogens and other ‘designer’ drugs.  

Low health literacy concerns from report

Health Literacy : Implications for Australia is a report from Medibank Private, which explains how low health literacy in patients is leading to more deaths in older Australians and is causing significant cost to the healthcare industry.  The study, which mainly focussed on seniors, found that nearly 60% of Australians may be unable to understand, access and communicate health information, and this is associated with higher mortality, lack of medication adherence, lack of ability to interpret labels and health messages, increased hospitalisations and poorer overall health status in seniors.

Failure to follow up with GP after discharge from the ED

“Factors associated with failure to follow up with a general practitioner after discharge from the emergency department” by Qureshi et al, has been published in Emergency Medicine Australasia.  The authors conducted a GP follow-up study using a prospective cohort of adult patients discharged from the ED who were requested to see their GP to complete their medical care. They found that participants who were aware of the reason why they were supposed to follow up with a GP, who had health insurance or had a regular GP were more likely to comply with the request to follow up, and suggest good patient communication is important for successful follow up, and that alternative avenues for completion of management need to be explored for patients without health insurance or a regular GP.  

Emergency Medicine Australasia, 1742-6723. doi: 10.1111/j.1742-6723.2012.01610.x – Contact your health library for the full text of the article.

Cancer survival in Australia – report

The AIHW has recently released Cancer survival and prevalence in Australia: period estimates from 1982 to 2010.  Five-year survival for all cancers combined increased from 47% in 1982-1987 to 66% in 2006-2010. The largest survival gains over this time were for prostate cancer, kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2006-2010, cancers with the highest survival were those of the testis, lip, prostate and thyroid, and melanoma of the skin. In comparison, pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma had the lowest survival rates.  

The message is that survival is increasing, but not for all cancers.  Those people with cancer who had already survived 5 years past their diagnosis, had quite high survival prospects for the next 5 years - more than 90% for all cancers combined.

Aged care statistical overviews

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare have released two overviews related to aged care:

• Residential aged care in Australia 2010-11: a statistical overview provides a comprehensive overview of Australian Government-funded aged care, with information on residential aged care facilities, their residents, admissions and separations, and residents' dependency levels. There were around 169,000 people living in residential aged care at 30 June 2011, nearly all on a permanent basis. 77% were aged 80 and over and 57% were aged 85 and over.  70% of permanent residents were female.

• Aged care packages in the community 2010-11: a statistical overview describes the key characteristics of three types of community aged care programs: Community Aged Care Packages (CACP) and Extended Aged Care at Home (EACH) and Extended Aged Care at Home Dementia (EACHD . At 30 June 2011, there were 50, 900 recipients of care packages. About 1,200 providers delivered low-care packages, 500 delivered high-care packages and 340 providers delivered high-care specialised dementia packages.

On The Radar - Safety and quality alerts

On the Radar is a summary of some of the recent publications in the areas of safety and quality in health care, provided in the form of email alerts by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.  You can subscribe to receive the alerts by email, or read the contents of the most recent summaries at this site.  Most items are recent journal articles, and there are links where the full content is available.  An extremely useful way of keeping up to date in this area.  You can use your library to obtain the full text of any articles you want to read!

E-mental health strategy for Australia

This strategy report by the Federal Government sets out a long term vision for developing an accessible, high quality and integrated e-mental health care system. This Strategy is hoping to build on bringing services together, and help to embed e-mental health into the broader primary mental health care system. Over time, the government would like to see e-mental health entrenched in practitioners' thinking as an appropriate form of treatment. This Strategy will support the development of a mature e-mental health care system, offering high quality services to consumers and carers.
Download the Department of Health and Ageing report here.

Gynaecological cancers in Australia: an overview

This AIHW report provides a comprehensive picture of gynaecological cancer in Australia including how rates differ by geographical area, socioeconomic status, Indigenous status and country of birth.  Gynaecological cancers (including ovarian, uterine, cervical, vaginal, vulval and cancers of other female genital organs and placenta) accounted for about 9% of all reported cancer cases in females in 2008, equating to an average of 12 females diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer every day.

Clinical Practice Points on managing Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children and adolescents

This document provides guidance to health professionals to appropriately assess, diagnose and manage ADHD symptoms in children and young people. The aim of the document is to provide clarity to clinicians on one of the most controversial areas in ADHD - the use of medication, in particular stimulants, in managing children and adolescents with ADHD symptoms. The CPPs (Clinical Practice Points) also discuss psychological and educational strategies as other management options for some children/adolescents.

Download the pdf from the NHMRC website here.

Age patterns in key health risk factors over time

This report from the AIHW, Risk factor trends: age patterns in key health risk factors over time presents comparisons over time for different age groups for key health risk factors, including overweight and obesity, physical inactivity, poor diet, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The good news is that smoking rates have declined, particularly among younger people. However, overweight/obesity rates have increased for virtually all age groups, especially females aged 12 to 44.  There are also a high proportion of people not engaged in physical exercise, and again this is across all age groups.

Male depression video

ABC Health & Wellbeing make available a series called Tonic, presented by Dr. Norman Swan.  In the most recent edition you can watch a 30 minute video, Male Depression : the hidden epidemic.  "Depression affects men and women differently, making it more difficult to identify and diagnose effectively in males. It's estimated one in six men will suffer from depression in their lifetime - and far fewer are treated."

Professor John Oliffe and Professor Ian Hickie provide the expert commentary, while men who have suffered from depression are interviewed about their experiences.  You can also read the transcript.

Nursing roles

"Advanced nursing roles : a systematic review" by Jokiniemi et al has just been published in the journal Nursing and Health Sciences.  The authors made a useful comparison between nurse consultants (UK), clinical nurse specialists (USA) and clinical nurse consultants (Australia).  The results indicated that the three positions were similar roles, with variation derived from organisational or individual choices rather than the country of origin.  Recommendations were made for further exploration of these roles and the authors highlight the potential for an international consensus on the definition of advance practice nursing and its sub-roles. 

Nursing & Health Sciences, 2012. 14, 421-431.  Contact your health library for a copy of the article.

Hospital separations due to injury and poisoning

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released a series of reports on this topic.  In the most recent information, from 2008-2009, a total of 412,985 injury cases required hospitalisation during the 12 months (239,345 males and 173,637 females). Overall rates of injury were higher among people aged 65 and over, and lower in children aged 0-14. The leading causes of hospitalised injury were unintentional falls (38% of cases), followed by transport accidents (14%).
Click on the links below for the three most recent reports.

• Hospital Separations due to injury and poisoning, Australia 2008-09
• Hospital separations due to injury and poisoning, Australia 2007-08
• Hospital separations due to injury and poisoning, Australia 2006-07

Should I stay or should I go- Nursing turnover

The Journal of Advanced Nursing has made available a free virtual issue focusing on turnover in the nursing workforce. Health organisations incur costs every time a nurse leaves the workforce and it is well known that stability in hospital employees leads to better care delivery.
"Policy makers need a firm grasp of what makes nurses want to nurse, even in challenging circumstances, and what will retain and motivate them," says James Buchan, contributor to this issue.
Virtual Issue: Workforce

Community Update on Safety and Quality in NSW

The Directorate of Patient Based Care at the Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) has recently developed “Community Update on Safety and Quality in NSW”. The Community Update is designed to provide information on the progress of NSW public hospitals across four key safety areas: hand hygiene, medication safety, falls and handover to consumers of health care.

Engaging the community and partnering with patients, families and carers as team members improves quality in health care. In this Community Update, we provide information and practical ways for consumers to improve the care they receive whilst in hospital.
You can access the Community Update from: http://www.cec.health.nsw.gov.au/community-update

Spirituality, Older Australians and Wellbeing

This free open access article in a recent issue of Australasian Journal on Ageing examines the impact of perceived importance of spirituality or religion (ISR) and religious service attendance (RSA) on health and well-being in older Australians. The article concludes that spirituality and/or religion is still considered to be important to many older Australian adults. In addition, spirituality and attendance at religious services has a beneficial impact on older Australians' perceptions of social support, which may enable them to better cope with multiple comorbidities.
Read the full article here or go to the Australasian Journal on Ageing and read all the open access articles.
Australasian Journal on Ageing Volume 30, Issue 2, pages 82–88, June 2011

Risk factor trends: age patterns in key health risk factors over time

This report presents comparisons over time for different age groups for key health risk factors, including overweight and obesity, physical inactivity, poor diet, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The good news is  that smoking rates have declined, particularly among younger people. However, overweight/obesity rates have increased for virtually all age  groups, especially females aged 12 to 44.

Download this recent AIHW report here.

Simulated learning for nurses

Australian Nursing Federation's recently launched simulated learning education program has proved extremely popular with the website inundated with registrations to access the 32 training modules. ANF federal education officer Jodie Davis said “Each module teaches a different procedure through an interactive simulation, accompanied by a step-by-step text with hyperlinks, a video demonstration, a 3D model of the anatomy encountered during the procedure and a quiz.” Ms Davis said the website was three years in the making and was ideal for rural and remote nurses and also for any nurse who wanted to add to their training outside the workplace.
The Modules cost $10 each for ANF, NSWNA and QNU members and are $15 for non-members.

Cochrane resources for burns

The Cochrane Library includes collections of resources on particular topics, known as Evidence Aids.  Their "Resources for Burns" collection brings together and summarises Cochrane Reviews on burns in the areas of topical and systemic treatments, nutrition and supplementation, the prevention of burns and the treatment of scarring.  It was first published in December 2010, and was updated in August 2012 with new and updated Cochrane Reviews.  

Unhealthy lifestyles - clusters

"Clustering of unhealthy behaviours over time : implications for policy and practice" is a paper from the King's Fund in the UK which looks at the current evidence on multiple lifestyle risks and analyses data from the Health Survey for England on the distribution of these risks in the adult population and how this is changing over time.  The study concludes that although there was an overall improvement in smoking, drinking, dietary and exercise behaviours between 2003 and 2008, this was only true in the higher socioeconomic groups.  The authors suggested that there needed to be a more holistic approach to policy and practice for health promotion and more effective ways needed to be found to help people in lower socioeconomic groups and those with the least education.

You can read a BMJ commentary on this paper as well, Fight to tackle unhealthy lifestyles has widened gaps in health inequalities.  BMJ 2012;345:e5707

Child deaths - rural drowning

Child deaths : rural drowning examines the deaths of children in rural drowning incidents and the need to develop specific drowning prevention strategies for the unique environments of rural areas.  The findings are presented in this issues paper by the Commission for Children and Young People in Queensland, and they are based on a review of deaths from the Queensland Child Death Register from 2004 to 2011.  During this time there were 75 reported child drownings, 18 on farms and 35 on other private properties.  Rural water hazards contributed more deaths than swimming pools.

Drowning prevention strategies need to address the geographical and social barriers of rural life, while maintaining a balance between minimising the risks and keeping the things that make country life fun for children. 

Smartphones in health care settings

"Distraction : an assessment of smartphone usage in health care work settings" is a recent open access article by Gill et al.  The authors suggest that the opportunities and benefits presented by Smartphone applications in health care work settings could be undermined if abuse and overuse are not kept in check. Current applications that are useful to health professionals are examined, as well as the level and effects of distractions.  A conceptual framework for crafting guidelines to regulate smartphone use in health care workplace is presented. 
Gill P, Kamath A, et al. (2012). Risk Management and Healthcare Policy. 5, 105–114

Health Awareness website

This very useful website has been created by HAPI, Health Awareness Project Information.  It's an Australian site, but includes global information.  Set up by Bonnie Heim, a medical librarian (so it must be good),  each month has a list of events around the world related to health.  For example, this week in Australia it's Spina Bifida Awareness Week, National Asthma Week and National Child Protection Week (among others), while it's Migraine Awareness Week in the UK and MS Awareness Week in New Zealand.  Each date links to the sites responsible for events.  You can also click on the PINTERST button to go to posters and videos related to the weeks and days listed.

Disability and health inequalities in Australia

Disability and Health Inequalities in Australia is a research summary from VicHealth, which defines disability and provides an overview of information regarding the health of people with disabilities and the underlying social determinants, using the population-based data that is available.  The report concludes that "The social and economic disadvantage in which people with disabilities live is likely to make a significant contribution to the poorer health outcomes they experience".  Given that one in 5 Australians have a disability, there is a need to improve the wellbeing and health of these people.

As a follow-up to this research summary, VicHealth is developing a framework and evidence-based resource which will provide information to policy-makers and practitioners that will help facilitate partnerships, engage in advocacy and take action to reduce the health inequalities experienced by people with disabilities. These are due for release in mid-2013.

Parenting and mental illness

The latest bulletin from SANE Australia, Parenting and mental illness : the school years, reports on a survey of parents with a mental illness, focusing on when the child is of school-age.  The surveyors asked them about available support, and what assistance they would like for themselves and their family. This is especially important, as having a parent with a mental illness is a recognised risk factor for the child developing mental health problems such as depression and anxiety disorders later in life.

The survey was conducted in May 2012 in partnership with COPMI, the national initiative for Children of Parents with a Mental Illness.

Australian access to Cochrane Library renewed

The National Health and Medical Research Council has just entered into a new five year agreement to enable all Australians to continue to have free access to The Cochrane Library. 

The Library publishes systematic reviews undertaken by the Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane reviews are intended to help practitioners and patients make informed decisions about health care, using comprehensive, reliable and relevant sources of evidence on which to base these decisions.