In brief
Mental health service improves
As part of a reform of South Australia’s mental health services, UniSA and SA Health are establishing a Chair in Mental Health to play a lead role in teaching, generating research and encouraging community engagement around the issue.
"This collaboration in leading such a valuable clinical and operational partnership is a wonderful example of organisations working together to achieve better outcomes for the community," said SA Health Chief Executive Dr Tony Sherbon.
"The Chair will play an important role in enhancing the delivery of mental health nursing by leading research into the area, attracting research funding and increasing the numbers of postgraduate students studying mental health nursing."
Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at UniSA, Professor Helen McCutcheon, said the role would work across a whole range of health settings, including metropolitan, rural, remote, community and hospital-based, to bring new leadership to the mental health nursing workforce that would ultimately benefit the people of South Australia.
"Nurses have an important clinical and public health role across the health care system, and if they are properly educated, trained and experienced, they can play a valuable role in identifying mental health problems and providing recovery based care and treatment for individuals, family and carers," Prof McCutcheon said.
"This is particularly important as about 50 per cent of people with a mental illness are not identified by their health professional as having a psychological problem."
The position is in the process of being filled.
Science awards open
Scientists, teachers and their colleagues have until Friday, May 8 to nominate for the 2009 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science.
The Australian Government says the prizes are an important way to express its appreciation of the achievements of our most talented scientists and science teachers.
There are five prizes:
Prime Minister’s Prize for Science ($300,000)
Science Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the Year ($50,000)
Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year ($50,000)
Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools ($50,000)
Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools ($50,000)
Nominations can be made online at www.innovation.gov.au/scienceprizes
Meanwhile, nominations are also now open for the 2009 South Australian Science Excellence Awards. Categories include South Australian Scientist of the Year, Excellence in Research (commercialisation, public good and collaboration) and Science Educators of the Year (school, tertiary, community).
UniSA has been successful in the past at the SA awards, most recently in 2008 with Prof Drew Dawson from the Centre for Sleep Research winning the Excellence in Research for Commercial Benefit Award.
Nominations close on 5 June. For more information go to www.scienceawards.sa.gov.au.
Planning the best patient care
Using
the best evidence to plan patient care has become the primary focus
for healthcare practitioners around the world. And UniSA is leading
the way, producing the first textbook that is dedicated to teaching
allied health (AH) practitioners about sourcing evidence for patient
care.
The textbook, Practical tips in finding the evidence: An allied health primer, has been produced by the University’s Centre for Allied Health Evidence, and was launched in late March by South Australian Minister for Health, the Hon John Hill.
"South Australia leads the way in allied health legislature, clinical practice and research," Centre Director, Prof Karen Grimmer-Somers said. "Evidence-based practice is now the byword for best patient care and treatment.
"The Centre for Allied Health Evidence is dedicated to helping clinicians turn research and evidence into care. This textbook is the first of its kind and will become an invaluable resource for anyone working in allied health.
"It provides a step-by-step guide to the process of searching for the best options for patient care based on real evidence of what works. These techniques can be applied to any clinical case, at any time, by any allied health clinician with access to the internet or a library, using freely available research literature sources.
"Essentially it will help clinicians navigate their way through the vast amount of information available on best-practice care and decide which evidence-based approach is the best for a particular situation.
"This textbook is exactly what allied health professionals looking to provide evidence-based best patient care have needed and is testament to the innovative work that’s being carried out at UniSA at the Centre for Allied Health Evidence," Prof Grimmer-Somers said.
Allied health disciplines included in this new textbook are: acupuncture, chiropractic and osteopathy, naturopathy, nutrition, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, podiatry, prosthetics and orthotics, social work and speech pathology.
Oats may improve memory
In recent years there has been increasing interest
in how the foods people eat can affect their thinking and memory.
Researchers at UniSA’s Nutritional Physiology Research Centre are
now embarking on a series of studies that will look at how an
extract from wild oats can potentially improve memory and other
brain functions.
"Oats in their various forms and extracts have long been recognised for their physiological and psychological fortifying properties," said Dr Janet Bryan from UniSA’s School of Psychology who is leading the study.
"In addition to their use as a staple wholegrain cereal, oat extracts have traditionally been used to treat nervous exhaustion, depression, anxiety and as a topical application for rheumatic ailments.
"It is thought that extracts of wild oats contain certain bioactive nutrients which may also be able to assist in improving blood flow in the brain, which in turn could lead to improvements in memory and psychological well being."
The new project will investigate whether extracts from oats can assist with thinking and memory, as well as stress coping abilities and feelings of well-being in older age. The study will also examine whether these effects are due to the oat extract increasing blood flow to the brain.
The researchers are looking for men and women aged between 50 and 90 years that have experienced some form of mild memory loss to participate in the study.
"The memory loss does not have to be a significant problem and we invite anyone who thinks they may be eligible to volunteer to contact us to find out more," Dr Bryan said.
To find out more about making a contribution to this important study you can telephone Matthew Robinson on (08) 8302 1939 or email robmj010@students.unisa.edu.au.