Ongoing Projects

There is a large and even growing need for qualified nurses to provide high-quality care for people with dementia in the healthcare system. At the same time, studies show that nursing students have low preferences working in dementia care.

Assessment tools to evaluate the communicative abilities of people with dementia for healthcare professionals: a scoping review.

People with dementia are already affected by impairments in their communication skills in the early stages of the disease. This can lead to misunderstandings in daily communicative situations with relatives or carers. These problems in social interactions lead to people with dementia reducing their social contacts and participating less in leisure activities. Relationships, including with family members, can be difficult to maintain and lead to social withdrawal, which can negatively impact the quality of life of those affected and their relatives. One way of counteracting social withdrawal is to intensify the communication opportunities offered by family members or carers. To maintain dialogue, it is crucial to specifically collect and assess communication skills.

The objectives of this scoping review are 1) to provide a comprehensive overview of the current evidence on eccentric training modalities and flexibility, joint range of motion and/or fascicle length in the rehabilitation process of lower limb musculoskeletal disorders; 2) to describe in detail the modalities of training including dosage of eccentric training during the specific tissue healing phases; and 3) to identify the need for future research.

Clinical computed tomography (CT) is a highly established diagnostic imaging tool in healthcare. Due to its high impact on medical diagnosis and therapy planning, the technology is evolving rapidly. ALARA (“As low as reasonably achievable”) in terms of radiation exposure for medical purposes with the primary intention to bring health benefits to the individual is one of the most important principles for acquiring medical images with radiation exposure. Hence, the optimization of image acquisition is an important part of clinical practice and is declared within the medical radiation protection regulation (§4 (1) MedSchV). In addition, the medical radiation regulation expels reference values for diagnostic CT imaging as a minimum requirement in clinical practice. However, due to new hardware technologies in computer tomography scanners as well as new acquisition and reconstruction techniques of imaging data the potential reduction of radiation exposure in medical CT imaging expands. Furthermore, especially with the availability of integrated photon counting detectors into clinical scanners, enhanced quantitative approaches lead to better tissue characterization and can add additional diagnostic information to raise the disease prognosis.

Thermal spa and health destinations in the Bavarian-Austrian program area as well as the entire health tourism industry are suffering massively from an enormous shortage of skilled workers. At least since the Covid-19 pandemic many specialists have left their companies, regions or even their industries ꟷ individual destinations can no longer solve these challenges on their own.

It is therefore important to join forces to counteract this exodus with sustainable strategies and measures in order to (re)gain urgently needed professionals and retain them within the companies in the long run, to improve current trainings and to continue education programs in line with demands, and to make the basic working and living conditions in the destinations more attractive.

Professional Identity (PI) has been defined as an ongoing transformative evolutionary process. PI is the adoption of specific beliefs, attributes and (ethical) values and experiences to become a member of a profession or the way individuals „think and act in line with the… group, … expressed by normative behaviour and loyalty”. Lacking clarity of PI can lead negatively to a professional’s attenuated perceived self-value, can weaken the profession itself and the confidence in performing her/his role. On the other hand, a well-developed concept of one’s PI can lead to enhanced professional confidence and a better exercise of the profession chosen.

In Austria, as in many other countries, the older population continues to grow. Often elderly people prefer staying in their own homes for as long as they can, and only move into a nursing home at a later stage in their lives or only if need be. However, to respond to this important and understandable request for independence, family members and informal caregivers have to take on challenging responsibilities. Our project aims to support these individuals in home care for elderly people.

Differential analysis indicates that social inequality leads to health inequality and poverty is considered a co-founder in many health care settings. This project aims to present the impact of material deprivation on maternal and neonatal obstetric outcomes.

Worksite based prolonged static sitting postures can cause musculoskeletal pain. While the development of pain increases due to the constant growth of digitalization at work, numerous interventions to reduce prolonged sitting periods have been created. The effects of such interventions have not yet been properly examined. Thus, the "DynSit-Pain" project was initiated to investigate the influence of dynamic sitting on the pain development of pain developers in office environments.

The diagnosis of interstitial lung disease (ILD) due to its complex pathologic mechanisms and similar clinical features is quite difficult to achieve. A possible approach to track local changes in lung tissue can be radiological imaging, commonly through high resolution computed tomography (HRCT). However, due to the complex character of ILDs, results from HRCT are limited because of the occurrence of similar radiological features and the lack of defining exposed tissue caused by inflammation.

Even though increasing digitalisation reduces handwriting activities, the intensive use of a handwriting tool can lead to problems in the hand or finger areas. Since these problems are often induced by too much pressure and excessive forces during the handwriting process, an ideal design shall help in reducing them. Such an innovative design will be investigated in a cooperative study with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Early detection of language development disorders and a timely delivery of appropriate measures derived therefrom can prevent the secondary consequences of language learning disorders. In particular, phonologically delayed disorders, can have an impact on the development of literacy and placing the child at risk for dyslexia. Due to the high demand for speech therapy, however, many children wait up to 4 months before therapy can be started.