What is the Gut Microbiota? The human body is inhabited by trillions of microbes, mostly bacteria but also viruses and fungi (1). The majority of these microbes inhabit the human intestinal system, which is called the gut microbiota (Figure 1). ...

The inaugural Health Minister’s award for nursing trailblazers has been awarded to a Canberra nurse for her work in improving the delivery of palliative care to Australians living in residential aged care. Nikki Johnston, a palliative care nurse practitioner based ...

Pressure injuries are expensive for our health system, hugely distressing for patients and, most of all, preventable and predictable. That is according to UTS professor of nursing Debra Jackson. "They are so distressing," she said. "Once a person gets a ...

For Dr Anne O’Callaghan it started 10 or 15 years ago when complications occurred after her cancer surgery. “I couldn't get anybody to hear that I was worried about my paralysed legs and my pain,” she tells me. "And I think ...

A trial of new cleaning guidelines used in Australian hospitals has significantly reduced major healthcare-associated infections. Trialled over 11 hospitals, cleaning practices improved from 55 to 76 per cent in bathroom areas and from 64 to 86 per cent in ...

Quiet and private, or isolated and hard to manage. These are the flipsides in the increasing argument for and against single occupancy hospital rooms. There is a growing trend internationally for single occupancy rooms, but the dearth of literature in ...

It is time to think of cancer as a chronic disease and use cancer treatment as something that manages the disease, rather than eradicate it all together. These ideas are part of a new theory put forward by Professor Paul ...

Sometimes the best ideas are so obvious no one seems to pay attention to them. Reablement is such a clever idea that it seems almost unnecessary to have a specialised word in aged care for it. Yet it may be ...

Victoria will see voluntary assisted dying become law in June next year and nurses are still working through what the change in legislation means for their practice. And that's exactly what the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) unpacked at a ...

It is often challenging for older adults to make the transition into aged care. Many new residents experience grief as they are leaving behind their homes, spouses and possessions. Being placed into an unfamiliar environment with new people can lead ...