Australian Catholic University

About: Australian Catholic University is a education organization based out in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 2721 authors who have published 10013 publications receiving 215248 citations. The organization is also known as: ACU & ACU National.

Symptom recognition in elders with heart failure.

Abstract: Purpose: Aging is associated with losses in hearing and vision. The objective of this study was to assess whether aging also is associated with less ability to detect and interpret afferent physiological information. Design: A cross-sectional mixed methods study was conducted with 29 persons with a confirmed diagnosis of chronic heart failure of at least 6 months duration. The sample was divided at the median to compare younger (<73 years) versus older (≥73 years) patients in the ability to detect and interpret their heart failure symptoms. Methods: Shortness of breath was stimulated using a 6-minute walk test (6MWT) and used to assess the ability of heart failure patients to detect shortness of breath using the Borg measure of perceived exertion compared with gold standard ratings of each person's shortness of breath by trained registered nurse research assistants (inter-rater congruence 0.91). Accuracy of ratings by older patients was compared with those of younger patients. In-depth interviews were used to assess symptom interpretation ability. Findings: Integrated quantitative and qualitative data confirmed that older patients had more difficulty in detecting and interpreting shortness of breath than younger patients. Older patients were twice as likely as younger to report a different level of shortness of breath than that noted by the registered nurse research assistants immediately after the 6MWT. Conclusions: These results support our theory of an age-related decline in the ability to attend to internal physical symptoms. This decline may be a cause of poor early symptom detection. Clinical Relevance: The results of this study suggest that there is a need to develop interventions that focus on the symptom experience to help patients—particularly older ones—in somatic awareness and symptom interpretation. It may be useful to explore patients’ statements about how they feel: “Compared to what? How do you feel today compared to yesterday?”

Generalising the pattern rule for visual growth patterns: Actions that support 8 year olds’ thinking

Abstract: A common approach used for introducing algebra to young adolescents is an exploration of visual growth patterns and expressing these patterns as functions and algebraic expressions. Past research has indicated that many adolescents experience difficulties with this approach. This paper explores teaching actions and thinking that begins to bridge many of these difficulties at an early age. A teaching experiment was conducted with two classes of students with an average age of eight years and six months. From the results it appears that young students are capable not only of thinking about the relationship between two data sets, but also of expressing this relationship in a very abstract form.

Altitude training and haemoglobin mass from the optimised carbon monoxide rebreathing method determined by a meta-analysis

Abstract: Objective To characterise the time course of changes in haemoglobin mass (Hbmass) in response to altitude exposure Methods This meta-analysis uses raw data from 17 studies that used carbon monoxide rebreathing to determine Hbmass prealtitude, during altitude and postaltitude Seven studies were classic altitude training, eight were live high train low (LHTL) and two mixed classic and LHTL Separate linear-mixed models were fitted to the data from the 17 studies and the resultant estimates of the effects of altitude used in a random effects meta-analysis to obtain an overall estimate of the effect of altitude, with separate analyses during altitude and postaltitude In addition, within-subject differences from the prealtitude phase for altitude participant and all the data on control participants were used to estimate the analytical SD The ‘true’ between-subject response to altitude was estimated from the within-subject differences on altitude participants, between the prealtitude and during-altitude phases, together with the estimated analytical SD Results During-altitude Hbmass was estimated to increase by ∼11%/100 h for LHTL and classic altitude Postaltitude Hbmass was estimated to be 33% higher than prealtitude values for up to 20 days The withinsubject SD was constant at ∼2% for up to 7 days between observations, indicative of analytical error A 95% prediction interval for the ‘true’ response of an athlete exposed to 300 h of altitude was estimated to be 11–6% Conclusions Camps as short as 2 weeks of classic and LHTL altitude will quite likely increase Hbmass and most athletes can expect benefit

A brief history of FRAX.

Abstract: Summary This paper reviews the research programme that went into the development of FRAX® and its impact in the 10 years since its release in 2008.

An integrated model of academic self-concept development: Academic self-concept, grades, test scores, and tracking over 6 years.

Abstract: Our newly proposed integrated academic self-concept model integrates 3 major theories of academic self-concept formation and developmental perspectives into a unified conceptual and methodological framework. Relations among math self-concept (MSC), school grades, test scores, and school-level contextual effects over 6 years, from the end of primary school through the first 5 years of secondary school (a representative sample of 3,370 German students, 42 secondary schools, 50% male, M age at grade 5 = 11.75) support the (1) internal/external frame of reference model: Math school grades had positive effects on MSC, but the effects of German grades were negative; (2) reciprocal effects (longitudinal panel) model: MSC was predictive of and predicted by math test scores and school grades; (3) big-fish-little-pond effect: The effects on MSC were negative for school-average achievement based on 4 indicators (primary school grades in math and German, school-track prior to the start of secondary school, math test scores in the first year of secondary school). Results for all 3 theoretical models were consistent across the 5 secondary school years: This supports the prediction of developmental equilibrium. This integration highlights the robustness of support over the potentially volatile early to middle adolescent period; the interconnectedness and complementarity of 3 ASC models; their counterbalancing strengths and weaknesses; and new theoretical, developmental, and substantive implications at their intersections. (PsycINFO Database Record