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Research

During a pandemic when hospitals are stretched and patients need isolation, the role of hospital-in-the-home (HITH) providing acute medical care at home has never been more relevant. We aimed to define and address the challenges to acute home care services posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research

PURPOSE: To develop a consensus statement for the prescription of a Powered Wheelchair Standing Device (PWSD) in young people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). MATERIALS AND METHODS: An international multidisciplinary panel comprising clinicians and users (young people with DMD) along with their parents was consulted. A literature review was undertaken and a Delphi method was utilised to generate consensus statements.

Research

Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Human Rhinovirus are the most frequent cause of respiratory tract infections in infants and children and are major triggers of acute viral bronchiolitis, wheezing and asthma exacerbations.

Research

Otitis media is very common in Aboriginal children in Western Australia and chronic ear disease causes major problems in speech and language development and education. Up until recently, most programmes dealing with the problem of OM have focused on clinical interventions rather than prevention. The Enhanced Prevention Working Group was established as part of the WA Child Ear Health Strategy (2017–2021). The Group has worked collaboratively to develop a set of recommendations for prevention of OM in Aboriginal children.

Research

Background: β-lactam antibiotics are associated with a variety of immune-mediated or hypersensitivity reactions, including immediate (type I) reactions mediated by antigen-specific IgE. Objective: We sought to identify genetic predisposing factors for immediate reactions to β-lactam antibiotics.

Research

The advent of modern "omics" technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) are attributed to innovative breakthroughs in genome sequencing, bioinformatics, and analytic tools. An organism's biological structure and function is the result of the concerted action of single cells in different tissues.

Research

In a community-based birth cohort of 158 Australian infants followed to age 2 years, the incidence rate of human parainfluenza virus (HPIV) was 0.42 (95% CI = 0.33, 0.54) episodes per child-year with episodes occurring year-round, peaking in the spring season.

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To investigate feasibility of aquatic high intensity interval training for adolescents with cerebral palsy, who can ambulate independently but may choose a mobility aid in some circumstances.

Research

Exome sequencing has enabled molecular diagnoses for rare disease patients but often with initial diagnostic rates of ~25-30%. Here we develop a robust computational pipeline to rank variants for reassessment of unsolved rare disease patients. A comprehensive web-based patient report is generated in which all deleterious variants can be filtered by gene, variant characteristics, OMIM disease and Phenolyzer scores, and all are annotated with an ACMG classification and links to ClinVar.

Research

The gut microbiome is a well-recognized modulator of host immunity, and its compositions differ between geographically separated human populations. Systemic innate immune responses to microbial derivatives also differ between geographically distinct human populations. However, the potential role of the microbiome in mediating geographically varied immune responses is unexplored. We here applied 16S amplicon sequencing to profile the stool microbiome and, in parallel, measured whole-blood innate immune cytokine responses to several pattern recognition receptor (PRR) agonists among 2-year-old children across biogeographically diverse settings. Microbiomes differed mainly between high- and low-resource environments and were not strongly associated with other demographic factors. We found strong correlations between responses to Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and relative abundances of Bacteroides and Prevotella populations, shared among Canadian and Ecuadorean children.