Children, adolescents and complementary and alternative therapies

Complementary and alternative therapies (CAM) are widely used in the general community and by people with diabetes, including children and adolescents; the latter usually use CAM on the advice of their parents. Children/parents use a range of CAM including herbal medicines, vitamins and minerals, essential oils (aromatherapy) as well as non-medicine CAM such as massage. The main reasons children/parents use CAM is to manage symptoms, improve metabolic control, prevent complications and as a supplement to insulin. There are benefits and risks to using CAM depending on the age of the child, the particular CAM used and their capacity to make an informed choice and understand the consequences of their choices. Health professionals need a broad understanding of CAM, to be aware that children/parents use CAM, to ask about CAM use and monitor potential beneficial and negative effects.

Alternative service delivery models for families with a new speech generating device: perspectives of parents and therapists

Purpose: Research has revealed limitations in the provision of in-person services to families with a new speech generating device (SGD), both in Australia and overseas. Alternative service models such as parent training, peer support and telepractice may offer a solution, but their use with this population has not been researched to date.

Method: Using interviews and focus groups, this study explored the experiences and opinions of 13 speech-language pathologists and seven parents regarding alternatives to in-person support and training for families with a new SGD. Data were analysed using grounded theory. Themes explored in this paper include the benefits and drawbacks of alternative service models as well as participants’ suggestions for the optimal implementation of these approaches.

Result: Participants confirmed the utility of alternative service models, particularly for rural/remote and underserviced clients. Benefits of these models included reduced travel time for families and therapists, as well as enhanced information access, support and advocacy for parents.

Conclusion: Participants viewed the provision of ongoing professional support to families as critical, regardless of service modality. Additional issues arising from this study include the need for development of organizational policies, resources and training infrastructure to support the implementation of these alternative service models.

Introducing linear functions: an alternative statistical approach

The introduction of linear functions is the turning point where many students decide if mathematics is useful or not. This means the role of parameters and variables in linear functions could be considered to be ‘threshold concepts’. There is recognition that linear functions can be taught in context through the exploration of linear modelling examples, but this has its limitations. Currently, statistical data is easily attainable, and graphics or computer algebra system (CAS) calculators are common in many classrooms. The use of this technology provides ease of access to different representations of linear functions as well as the ability to fit a least-squares line for real-life data. This means these calculators could support a possible alternative approach to the introduction of linear functions. This study compares the results of an end-oftopic test for two classes of Australian middle secondary students at a regional school to determine if such an alternative approach is feasible. In this study, test questions were grouped by concept and subjected to concept by concept analysis of the means of test results of the two classes. This analysis revealed that the students following the alternative approach demonstrated greater competence with non-standard questions.

A longitudinal analysis of self-prescribed complementary and alternative medicine use by a nationally representative sample of 19,783 Australian women, 2006-2010

BACKGROUND: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is increasingly popular amongst general populations around the world with women constituting substantial CAM users. However, self-prescribed CAM use does raise potential safety concerns and so it is important to identify those risk factors associated with self-prescribed CAM use. METHODS: Data was obtained from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH). Longitudinal data analyses were conducted on questionnaire data from the 1973-78 cohort (n=9,145) and the 1946-51 cohort (n=10,638), collected over the period 2006-2010. RESULTS: In the 1973-78 cohort, use of self-prescribed CAM was 73.2% in 2006 and 75.3% in 2009. For the 1946-51 cohort, use of self-prescribed CAM was 73.9% in 2007 and 74.7% in 2010. There were similar levels of use of individual self-prescribed CAM, with the exception that the use of herbal medicine was much higher among the 1946-51 cohort (20% vs. 27%). There was a substantial increase over three years in the use of vitamins/minerals in both cohorts (21% and 19%, respectively). In contrast, there was a considerable decline over three years in use of aromatherapy oils in both cohorts (34% and 28%, respectively). CONCLUSION: Self-prescribed CAM use is popular amongst women in Australia and it is important that conventional practitioners providing women's health care be cognizant of such use amongst their patients. In order to ensure effective practice, there is a need for further research to explore women's decision-making and experiences around self-prescribed CAM use.

An alternative (partial) justification for the holding in Kirk

In Kirk v Industrial Court (NSW), the High Court determined that, based on“accepted doctrine at the time of Federation”, s 73 of the Constitutionentrenched the jurisdiction of the State Supreme Courts to review thedecisions of State decision-makers on the grounds of jurisdictional error. In anearlier article, the author argued that this reasoning was seriously flawed. Thisarticle propounds an alternative, partial justification for the holding in Kirk,based on features inherent in the text and structure of Ch III of the Constitutionat Federation and the preservation of those features in the face of thepost-Federation dismantling of the imperial legal system. It argues that animplication can be inserted into s 73 which entrenches the jurisdiction of theState Supreme Courts to review the decisions of “Lower State Courts”, but not“State Administrators”.