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Health
Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer Dr Adith Mohan at UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) has been awarded a Maridulu Budyari Gumal, the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE) grant to improve clinical outcomes for patients with Functional Neurological Disorders. e award will bring together a team of international experts in the eld to address the gaps in the delivery of responsive, evidence-based services for Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) across Australia and New Zealand.
Dr Mohan says that the creation of collaborative consortia of specialist clinics positively in uence health outcomes in highly prevalent disorders, with cancer being a good example. ese consortia promote partnerships between tertiary clinical services and primary and secondary healthcare facilities and help improve quality of care for patients.
“Clinical consortia serve to coordinate the clinical and research agendas of participating members and increase access to services while allowing for optimal use of nite resources.
“ is consortium for FND – known as CARE FND - will facilitate e orts to systematically collect epidemiological and clinical data that can be translated into gold-standard practice and shape policy development.”
Dr Mohan, who leads the newly established Mindgardens FND Clinic at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, e Prince of Wales Hospital, says there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration.
“Changing the culture of care in FND requires a concerted e ort by clinicians, academics, healthcare policy and decision makers, hospital administrators and state-wide and national funding bodies in partnership with patients, their families, and their carers.
“ is funding will allow existing services to come together to evaluate the current landscape of FND care provision and develop robust guidelines that can shape the development of pathways of care that engage primary health networks, private sector providers and NGOs alike in the assessment and management of FND.”
Professor Jackie Curtis, Executive Director of Mindgardens Neuroscience Network and co-investigator on the grant, says this funding o ers a unique opportunity to coordinate clinical and research agendas in the eld.
“ is is an unprecedented collaboration of experts in FND in Australasia, with the Mindgardens FND Clinic serving as the central hub of CARE FND,” says Professor Curtis. “We know that we can improve our support for people with FND by coordinating care across the health system and integrating research that directly addresses patients’ experiences.”
FND is a common and treatable neuropsychiatric condition diagnosed in 15-20% of patients attending neurology clinics. Each year, approximately 200-300 new patients are diagnosed with FND in New South Wales alone.
Patients are typically young to middle-aged adults who demonstrate high rates of crisis-oriented healthcare utilisation. More than a third of these young adults end up remaining out of the workforce, and a quarter requiring disability support indicative of a signi cant burden of health and societal cost.
“Despite this reality, services for FND in Australia and New Zealand remain fragmented with poorly de ned care pathways,” says Dr Mohan.
CHeBA Co-Director and Chief Investigator Professor Perminder Sachdev, who leads a transnational consortium of 57 studies in cognitive ageing, will provide expert guidance in the set up and governance of CARE FND.
Professor Sachdev says that clinical consortia serve to promote health equity, set standards for care, enable sharing of knowledge and expertise, and foster the development of a cohesive translational research agenda.
“ is consortium is the rst of its kind in bringing together a unique team of investigators all of whom lead FND clinical services across the two countries and comprehensively represent the breadth of expertise in the eld of FND in Australasia,” he says.
Research to identify patients who will bene t most from a life-saving machine that acts as the heart and lungs following organ failure has received a $1 million Federal Government funding boost. e Minister for Health and Aged Care, e Hon Mark Butler, announced the $999,779.40 Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Cardiovascular Health Mission grant during a visit to e Alfred’s Intensive Care Unit on National Heart Day. e research involves the high-tech Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which simulates a heart/lung bypass a er acute cardiac and respiratory failure, and cardiac arrest. It can replace a non-functioning heart or lungs for weeks.
ECMO is used in adults, children, and newborns when all other forms of life support have failed. It has increased survival in these patients to around 60 per cent. In the past ve years, its use has doubled in Australia and globally. e newly funded PRecision Ecmo in CardIogenic Shock Evaluation: PRECISE Study is led by Monash University’s Dr Aidan Burrell, in collaboration with Alfred Health, St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, the University of Sydney, and e University of Queensland’s Critical Care Research Group.
PRECISE will recruit 236 patients to investigate whether biomarkers* can better identify patients who will derive the best long-term bene t from ECMO. e study is embedded in the National ECMO Registry ( e EXCEL Registry) led by Professor Carol Hodgson, head of the Division of Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. e EXCEL registry covers over 95 per cent of ECMO patients nationally and includes over 1000 receiving ECMO. Over three years, the registry has embedded at least six clinical trials, including three randomised controlled trials to test early interventions aimed at improving patient outcomes.
Professor Hodgson said the PRECISE study aimed to improve patient outcomes by “bridging the gap between bench and bedside”.
“We have the unique opportunity to use this funding for the PRECISE study within a national ECMO registry to nd the link between early biomarkers and long-term recovery in patients who have severe heart failure and need ECMO to survive,” Professor Hodgson said.
“ is will help patients and families understand the recovery trajectory a er critical illness and will help clinicians plan for the needs of their patients.”
Monash University Academic Vice-President and Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Professor Christina Mitchell, welcomed the grant and said the national ECMO registry team already had an outstanding research record and had shown that improved diagnosis, management and outcomes are achievable in Australia.
“ is new funding will allow us to investigate whether biomarkers can better identify which patients will derive the best long-term bene t from ECMO, potentially leading to more targeted ECMO support and improved patient care,” Professor Mitchell said.
