Kellyville physios at work

Strapping an ankle is not as easy as it seems. We've all had a go in the last couple of days. Sharon has an interesting approach. Natalie and Tarsha have done well, while Jonno, AJ, Josh and Laura have also done well. The link on this site entitled "strapping an ankle" provides some worthwhile tips and useful graphics to help you improve your technique. See how you go!

Drugs in Sport

Hi all, the issue of drugs in sport is very relevant to our study of ethics in sports medicine. Many drugs or therapies that have been developed to treat illness, help people recover from injury or improve patients' wellbeing can also be used to improve the performance of athletes. Pain killers have been used for centuries to improve people's wellbeing, yet they can also be used to help athletes perform while injured. Steroids and growth hormones can be used to accelerate tissue repair or overcome growth problems. Of course these very effects also benefit athletic strength and performance. Substances or methods used to improve respiratory function in patients with lung or breathing problems will also improve CV endurance.

At which point does the noble cause of treating an ailing patient become the unfair cause of cheating to win gold medals???

Try the link to asada, The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency, to get lots of information on prohibited substances, drug testing protocols and athlete education on drug related issues.

Health Insurance

The medicare levy is 1.5% not 1.8% as I suggested. The surcharge is 1%. Reaed all about it at the ATO website. I've added the link as "Medicare". When you get to the page you can follow the links to read about the income thresholds, exemptions etc.

The New Public Health Approach

One of the things you might need to do in your HSC exam is to identify how the new public health approach is applied in health promotion campaigns. You know the characteristics of the new public health are:
- empower individuals
- encourage community participation
- recognise the social determinants of health






EXAMPLE
The website for beyondblue, a national mental health initiative focusing on depression, describes many of its strategies. These strategies can be used as examples of the new public health approach eg

-beyondblue provides an online self-assessment tool for depression. This is an example of EMPOWERING INDIVIDUALS (because it provides individuals with the chance to find out about their own feelings before taking the big step of visiting a doctor, it overcomes the barrier of privacy and it gives individuals greater control over their own health decisions)

-beyondblue runs community meetings to raise awareness about depression. This is an example of COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION (because it provides opportunities for community members to be involved in health promotion action at a local level)

-beyondblue maintains a list of doctors who are interested, trained and willing to see patients who may be suffering from depression or other mental illnesses. This is an example of RECOGNISING THE DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
(because it is a mechanism for improving access to health services by informing people about where the most appropriate doctors are). Access to health services is a determinant of health.

PRACTICE TASK
Select one of the health promotion initiatives from your list. (You don't really need a list, just visit a few websites for Health Promotion Campaigns).
Read the materials to identify some of the strategies included in the campaign.
Find examples of strategies that use these three characteristics of the NPH Approach.

ACHPER Enrichment Day

ACHPER is the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Each year it runs excellent seminars and programs for teachers and HSC students. This year the best one for us will be run locally on Wednesday 29th July. Unfortunately some of us will be skiing at the time, but if you're not involved in the ski trip you should go to this whole day event. I will distribute info soon with all the details, including cost. The day includes a really good resource booklet. Lectures will probably cover Cores 1 and 2 and you will choose one Option. The booklet will probably include all modules.

The ACHPER website has a comprehensive list of useful web links for studying PDHPE. I've included it in the links list.

Increasing STIs

It's a worry to read in the ABC news that rates of STIs and teen pregnancies are increasing in Australia. In particular chlamydia has been mentioned as a widespread infection. 58000 cases annually and 17000 teenaged cases in 2000.It can cause infertility if it goes untreated. Teenagers are reported to make up over 25% of new cases. Teen preganancy rates are also reported to be higher than other developed nations.
Epidemiology in action?
How could you verify these reported rates of infection?
What preventative strategies could help to reduce these rates?
What strategies have been successful/unsuccessful in the past?
What factors might have lead to these reported increases?
Read the full article at:
www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/04/2560487.html

The pdhpe faculty had a brief intro session about setting up blogs this afternoon. Some of the staff were very interested and I think we'll see some more blogs up and running soon. We'll add the links as they come online. Blog sites are accessible at school by teachers, but not by students, so students will need to access from home. I hope to get some feedback from my Year 12 students soon.
The executive are also going to have a look on Wednesday afternoon. This is all part of KHS staff participating in a variety of training courses associated with Mr Rudd's "Technological Revolution".