At any time, there are hundreds of thousands of clinical trials and research projects taking place across the world in a wide range of disease and health areas including stroke, cancer, asthma and more.
Those who participate in clinical trials and other studies are often the first to access and benefit from new and emerging treatments across a range of areas, and have the satisfaction of one helping someone else with an illness, providing important scientific information that will be used to develop or improve disease treatments.
There are a number of research projects at HMRI that allow eligible people to access emerging medical research and treatments in a range of areas. Learn more about these projects and how you can become involved below.
Research Projects Currently Recruiting
Researchers are investigating if support from a nurse is helpful to people with dementia or memory problems and their carers. If you are aged 65 years and older, living in the greater Newcastle region and have dementia or memory problems, you and your carer (family member or friend) may be eligible to participate in this study. This study will test the impact of a nurse-led care co-ordination model on increasing days living in the community and improving quality of life of people living with dementia or memory problems and their family carers.
We are looking at how your diet and gut bacteria affect your immune system when you have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (emphysema or chronic bronchitis).
Click here for more info
The Triple E Project is a research study being conducted by researchers at the University of Sydney and the University of Newcastle. The project is testing ways to improve adolescents’ engagement with health apps, with the aim of empowering adolescents to improve their physical and mental health.
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Researchers are testing whether a new, more personalised way of managing asthma can keep people’s symptoms under good control, so that they don’t need to use corticosteroid tablets (e.g., prednisone) so often.
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Researchers from HMRI's Heart and Stroke Research Program are looking to test rehabilitation programs delivered in people's homes, that are tailored to each person’s needs and capacity, and guided by new technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI), to see whether they improve how well survivors of stroke recover the ability to do everyday activities at home and how it improves their quality of life.
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Women are disproportionately affected by asthma, as they are not only more likely to suffer from the disease but are also more likely to have severe asthma. There is also evidence that some women might experience changes in their asthma symptoms, both throughout their menstrual cycle and after menopause. This study aims to look at asthma symptoms in three groups of women with asthma: pre-menopausal women using no hormonal contraception, pre-menopausal women using the combined contraceptive pill, and post-menopausal women.
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We are inviting healthy adults to provide a blood sample that we can use to establish a normal reference range for a potential new diagnostic test.
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Are you concerned about the rise in vaping amongst youth? Although vaping amongst youth can cause serious adverse health outcomes (e.g. lung injury, poisoning and burns), the number of youth trying vaping is continuing to rise.
The research team from the University of Newcastle are testing the use of a text-message program sent to parents and their child (aged 12-15 years) to prevent youth from taking up vapes.
Research indicates there is an unmet need, to test an individualised nutrition and physical activity program for people with obesity-associated asthma that addresses nutritional and physical activity inadequacies, while also considering patient preferences, behaviours, and comorbidities. The purpose of this study is to address this unmet need, by testing the first individualised obesity management approach for adults with asthma.
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Are you aged 65 years or more? Do you live at home? Are you interested in improving your health and wellbeing? Researchers from the University of Newcastle are seeking volunteers to help test whether a new internet-based program which supports older people to remain socially connected is helpful in improving their wellbeing.
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Researchers want to work with Colorectal Cancer survivors and health professionals to co-design a digital intervention to help survivors improve their physical activity, diet and sleep quality and reduce their risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
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Researchers from the University of Newcastle and HMRI are seeking to work with informal female carers of stroke survivors to develop strategies and tools to support carers to self-manage their emotional and physical health.
If you’re a woman who provides care or has provided care to someone who has had a stroke, we would appreciate your help by sharing your experiences in our focus group.
Researchers need people who have had a stroke, or are carers for someone who has had a stroke, to participate in a community based program to support stroke recovery for stroke survivors. The aim of the group is to incorporate exercise, socialising and art-based thinking activities to improve recovery and quality of life for people living with stroke.
As many as 1 in 2 women are above a healthy weight range when trying for a baby and 1 in 7 couple have trouble falling pregnant.
PreBabe is a world-first clinic trial exploring how losing weight prior to pregnancy can improve the long-term health of mothers and babies.
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We’re inviting women with MS or NMOSD who have already used ART to take part in surveys and interviews to discuss if and where they felt there were gaps in their pregnancy planning and fertility treatment care.
The purpose of this study is to improve the quality of care that women with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) or Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder (NMOSD) receive while using Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).
Have you recently been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease?
Our researchers invite you to participate in a study which will explore how diet affects and triggers Crohn’s disease.
Many people with Crohn’s disease believe that diet is important in managing their condition, however, there is limited data on precisely which specific food components trigger symptoms.
Several different diets have been trialed to date, however, there is no consensus on a specific diet that can be recommended for the management Crohn’s disease.
This study will investigate how different food components affect the immune system and contribute to symptoms.
We invite adults with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) to participate in the international NF1 cutaneous neurofibroma consortium project which aims to improve our understanding of how genetics affects the number of skin neurofibromas a person with NF1 may develop.
Click here to find out more
We would like to invite you to complete the Digestive Health & Wellbeing Survey (DHWS) and the Structured Assessment of Gastrointestinal Symptoms Scale (SAGIS). These surveys contribute to digestive health research by providing information that will allow us to better characterise gastrointestinal problems.
They will ask for information about your gut symptoms, anxiety and depression, sleep, smoking and alcohol intake. This helps us understand why some people develop conditions and others do not. We would like people with and without gut problems to participate
Click here to learn more about this survey and to participate
Researchers are inviting people with asthma to participate in a study aiming to understand breathlessness
Click here to find out more
FIND OUT ABOUT
CLINICAL TRIALS
At any time, there are thousands of clinical trials taking place across the world in a wide range of disease and health areas. Those who participate in clinical trials and other studies are often the first to access and benefit from new and emerging treatments across a range of areas.
The Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry is an online registry that allows you to search for clinical trials currently available in Australia and New Zealand.
You can search the ANZCTR by location and disease or health area.
The search function on ANZCTR allows you to conduct either a basic search or an advanced search of clinical trials available on the ANZCTR database. Once you find a relevant trial, you will be able to contact the health care or research professional listed as the 'public contact' on the trial record for more information.
If you wish to search of clinical trials for a local trial, try putting the location and health or disease area in the search field. For example, Asthma, Newcastle.
To find out more information about how to be part of clinical trial, the first important step is to find out more information about clinical trials in general and what is involved in being part of a clinical trial.
There is a lot of information available online about the clinical trial process, the ethics and regulation of clinical trials and why a person would want to be a part of a trial in Australia.
A good place to start is the Australian Government’s National Health and Medical Research Council.
You can find out a great deal of information about clinical trials by visiting the site below.
Who Can Help?
You can also talk to any health professional involved in your care about upcoming clinical trials. This includes general practitioners (GPs), specialists, or nursing or allied health professionals. Your health care team may be able to provide general information about clinical trials and could have information on clinical trials that are relevant to you.
Support groups or consumer health organisations with an interest in a particular disease or condition that you are interested in may also have information on trials, or be able to provide contact information for other patients who have been involved in trials.