Research – Department of Health Sciences

It is estimated that in one in four families in Austria there is someone caring for another family member or a friend or acquaintance. Informal caregiving can lead to changes in lifestyle and living environment, including organisational challenges and physical and psychological burdens, and necessitate adaptation of the caregiver’s daily routines to accommodate the needs of the dependant. These changes and adaptations can in turn impact the caregiver’s health and wellbeing. The monotony of activities can restrict a healthy variety of activities. In occupational therapy and occupational science this mix of different activities is referred to as occupational balance. Until now caregivers’ occupational balance has not been systematically investigated.

The aim is to describe caregivers' occupational balance and other health-related factors and to explore possible associations between caregivers' occupational balance and health and wellbeing based on the analysis of reliable and valid measurements.

Additionally, we aim to give students the opportunity to gain research experience, to contribute to connecting the areas of research, education and clinical practice and to strengthen the cooperation between the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, the respective university clinics and hospitals of the NÖ Landeskliniken-Holding and the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences.

The Project is funded by NÖGUS.

The rapid spread of intelligent machines and systems is leading to massive changes in the workplace. Their use can be accompanied by both positive and negative changes in working conditions, with increased user-friendliness, but also with additional burden. For example, hospital information systems are installed world wide to support health professionals in accessing, processing and interpreting their patients’ health data. This human-computer interaction is often experienced as an additional burden in daily work of health professionals and is also detrimental to the quality of treatment. So far, there is no professional group-specific aggregation and visualisation of health data for occupational therapists and physical therapists.

The aim of the SMARAGD project is to develop exemplary technical components for the intelligent aggregation and visualisation of health data of patients relevant for occupational therapists and physical therapists and to test them in the sense of a feasibility study.

Different designs and methods are used. Qualitative and quantitative research methods are employed to determine which information is relevant for occupational therapists and physical therapists and whether this information is needed in original, aggregated or visualised form. Anonymised data sets are used to develop and test possibilities of aggregating or visualising health data. The feasibility study includes investigations of technical feasibility, user-friendliness and the legal framework.

The results include an overview of the specific information that is relevant for occupational therapists and physiotherapists and the required format of its presentation. Further results are drafts of possible components of an intelligent aggregation and visualisation of health data, the assessment of their technical feasibility and a report on the legal application requirements and limits for the intelligent aggregation and visualisation of health data in clinical practice.

The project is led by Prof. (FH) Mona Dür, PhD, MSc, the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems. The SMARAGD project is a collaboration between the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, SYNYO GmbH, University of Graz, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Medical University of Graz, Know-Center GmbH Research Center for Data-Driven Business & Big Data Analytics and University of Vienna. SMARAGD is funded by the Austrian Research Funding Agency (FFG).

Further information is available at www.smaragdprojekt.at .

In many countries, midwives are experts in caring for healthy pregnant women. Studies have demonstrated that continuous midwifery-led and evidence-based care models are safer and more effective than traditional obstetric care models. However, to achieve this, it is essential that midwives know, interpret, and put into practice the latest research findings. This ensures safe, transparent, effective and efficient healthcare and that the standards of midwifery care meet the expectations of pregnant women, their families and society.

The implementation of evidence-based midwifery practice in Austria continues to be a professional challenge. It has been suggested that many health professionals find it difficult to implement evidence into their daily work, as they have to come to terms with competing priorities. Numerous organisational and individual barriers influence the implementation and acceptance of evidence-based practice. Studies indicate that barriers include a lack of resources and skills as the most common obstacles to the implementation and use of evidence in midwifery practice.

Our aim was to provide SMEs providing midwifery services with the skills and resources to overcome the reported barriers to implementing the principles of evidence-based practice. We developed a teaching and learning concept tailored for practicing midwives, which enabled them to acquire the necessary skills to develop practical, sustainable, and successful strategies for the implementation of research findings in their daily practice. After completing a 40-hour qualification seminar, all participating midwives reported that they felt more confident in interpreting and using research evidence. They also stated that this was a complex process and that they would need more practice to master the newly acquired skills. In addition, they commented that the newly acquired skills and knowledge will assist them in their decision-making process, when advsing women during pregnancy, labour and the postnatal period.

The project is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency.

The Josef Ressel Centre (JRC) takes a humanistic stance, approaching personalisation at a more communicative and psychophysiological level. As a consequence, the JRC carries out research into music therapy and not just into the effects of music. Recognising that the “effects of (performing or listening to) music in the context of a therapeutic relationship” are very complex, the issue of personalisation of therapy is the JRC’s overriding research topic.

The JRC’s new approach is geared towards personalisation and therefore combines research in the following two main Areas: Research on the psychophysiological disposition of the patient and the therapist and its influence on appropriate times of a therapy intervention for particular patients as well research on empathy-based therapeutic relationships in the light of selected psychophysiological correlates.

The project is funded by Josef Ressel Centre Programme of the Christian Doppler Research Association, by NÖGUS and by s-team solutions GmbH.

Ability for empathy applies in therapeutic work as essential factor of the relationship between patient and therapist and as crucial component during recovery. It is seen as a key factor in (musica-)therapeutic work to establish a confident, therapeutic relationship between patient and therapist. Within this framework the therapist’s empathic care leads to a reduction of the opponent’s anxiety or rather stress reaction and enables a transformation into relaxation. In order to understand these processes it is necessary to explore empathy phenomenon. The focus of this project was the change of oxytocin-level in organisms in consequence of a empathic reaction caused by video sequences from clinic-therapeutic context.

The Project was co-funded by the NÖGUS.

Brain injuries bring about a variety of physical and psychological complaints. The site and severity of the brain lesion is always a decisive factor for the patient’s outlook in terms of disability.

Additionally, damage to the pathways between the brain centres can cause dysfunction in communication between them, and therefore secondary functional loss and processing problems. This results in neurological disorders such as poor concentration, attention and alertness.

Music therapy can establish new communication paths in the brain and is therefore a promising form of therapy for rebuilding communication structures between brain centres. This process is of central importance in every course of neuro- rehabilitation therapy.

The primary aim of the research was to determine the changes in brain activity (frontal lobe, hippocampus and cerebellum) and behaviour that can be brought about in vegetative state patients by means of music therapy. The project also examined if there are any links between changes in brain activity and behaviour.

The project was co-financed by Niederösterreichischer Gesundheits- und Sozialfonds (NÖGUS).

Over the last decade personalised medicine has become increasingly important in the fields of pharmacogenetics, pharmacogenomics, clinical diagnostics, and in particular chronopharmacology, which is concerned with the optimal point in time for drug delivery. However, with respect to therapeutic interventions (in a clinical context), there has been virtually no inquiry into the most beneficial time to give therapy in relation to a patient’s chronobiological rhythms. This project focused on the question of the ideal time to administer therapy in relation to individual biological rhythms, measured using heart rate variability (HRV).

The primary aim was to establish how individual circadian and ultradian rhythms could be represented most effectively by means of HRV analysis.

The project was financed by the Science and Research Department (K 3) of the Province of Lower Austria.