Introduction The aim of this study was to assess the impact of home-based telehealth monitoring on health outcomes, quality of life and costs over 12 months for patients with diabetes and/or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who were identified as being at high risk of readmission to hospital. Methods This pilot study was a randomised controlled trial combined with an economic analysis to examine the outcomes of standard care versus home-based telehealth for people with diabetes and/or COPD who were at risk of hospital readmission within one year. The primary outcomes were (i) hospital admission and length of stay (LOS); and (ii) health-related quality of life (HRQOL); and the secondary outcomes were (i) health-related clinical outcomes; (ii) anxiety and depression scores; and (iii) health literacy. The costs of the intervention and hospitalisations were included. Results A total of 86 and 85 participants were randomised to the intervention and control groups respectively. The difference between groups in hospital LOS was -3.89 (95% confidence interval (CI): -9.40, 1.62) days, and for HRQOL, 0.09 (95% CI: 0.05, 0.14) in favour of the telehealth monitoring group. There was a saving of AUD$6553 (95% CI: -12145, -961) in the cost of hospitalisation over 12 months, which offset the increased cost of tele-monitoring. The intervention group showed an improvement in anxiety, depression and health literacy at 12 months, and in the diabetes group, a reduction in microalbuminuria. Discussion The telehealth monitoring intervention improved patient's health outcomes and quality of life at no additional cost.

Two experiments examined whether young and older adults differ in comprehending sentences that contain temporary syntactic closure ambiguities. Experiment 1 examined age-related differences using the Auditory Moving Window (AMW) task, in which sentences were presented in a segment-by-segment self-paced fashion. Experiment 2 examined age-related differences using a sentence recall task, in which sentences were presented in their entirety. Sentences were constructed to have cooperating prosody (i.e., where prosody is consistent with the syntactic boundaries), baseline prosody (i.e., where prosody is ambiguous in the syntactically ambiguous region), and conflicting prosody (i.e., where cross-splicing relocates the prosodic phrase break at a misleading point in syntactic structure). The results showed that both young and older adults make comparable use of prosodic information to interpret temporary syntactic ambiguities, although younger adults may make use of this information more quickly than older adults. In addition, older adults appeared to be less able than young adults to revise initial syntactic misinterpretations caused by conflicting prosodic information. These results are interpreted with respect to age-related impairments in the allocation of working memory resources and inefficient inhibitory function during spoken language processing.

This study investigated experiences of trauma and psychosocial mediators in correctional staff who had dealt with a death in custody within the previous year. A total of 211 participants completed the Trauma Symptom Index as well as measures of self-efficacy, optimism, problem-solving style, social support, and growth. The data showed that around 32% of participants were exhibiting symptoms at a clinical level. Prior experience with suicide and level of involvement in the incident were direct predictors of symptom level. Support, optimism, self-efficacy, and confidence in problem-solving seemed to be potential protective factors and were also predictive of trauma-related growth. Although the study was cross sectional, the data suggest that it may be possible to predict factors that are protective and therefore offer some hope in terms of developing preventive strategies.

Local provision of percutaneous coronary intervention increases stenting rates and reduces length of hospital stay in remote regional centre