A new Australian study has found that people who live with chronic pain experience changes to their brain which can cause negative personality changes. The world first discovery found that people with chronic pain have smaller amounts of glutamate – the brain’s ...
More »Clinical Practice
How would you respond to a patient who wants to die?
It has been six months since the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act was passed into law in Victoria and the idea of state sanctioned euthanasia has been a topic continuously debated in state parliaments across the land. The full effect of ...
More »New complex trauma guidelines for health practitioners released
The Blue Knot Foundation, supported by Healthe Care Australia’s Belmont Private Hospital, has released its new Practice Guidelines for Clinical Treatment of Complex Trauma. The guidelines look to support informed trauma-specific responses to the growing trauma crisis and guide health ...
More »GP nurses could lead the way on anxiety diagnosis
The discussion about the mental health of our older population is slowly coming to prominence yet the scale of the issue is not fully understood. Approximately half of all aged care residents exhibit symptoms consistent with depression, but these stats are likely ...
More »Doing ‘everything’ near the end of life may be inappropriate for seniors in ICU
No-one wants to be a patient in an intensive care unit (ICU). But if you ever do require intensive care, would you or your family like to be better informed about the harms and benefits of intensive treatment? And would ...
More »Needle and the damage done: moment of carelessness lands nurse in court
In any action alleging negligence by a nurse, it is for the plaintiff to prove a number of ‘ingredients’. One ingredient is whether the actions of the nurse fell below the reasonable standard expected of the skill and knowledge of ...
More »Do nurses really understand pain?
Research has found that pain care for hospitalised patients over 65 years old is assessment driven and lacks sufficient patient input. The research found that pain care was hampered due to the lack of appropriate and meaningful pain care provision, ...
More »Improving maternal outcomes in rural and remote communities
The health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people starts at birth. The target to halve the gap in child mortality rates is not on track. In fact, it has widened to 2.4 times higher for Indigenous children. Preterm births are ...
More »Nurses should lead the way in palliative care: ACN
In the five-year period between 2011–12 and 2015–16 there was a nearly 30 per cent growth in palliative care hospitalisation. Add to this the 160,00 Australians who die each year – 70 per cent due to expected causes – a ...
More »Antimicrobial resistance still on the rise: new report
A new report released today shows that overall use of antibiotics in the community fell between 2015 and 2017 – the first decline in 20 years. However, the Third Australian report on antimicrobial use and resistance in human health, revealed ...
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