Projects
Integrating shared decision making in Belgian clinical practice KU Leuven
Shared decision making (SDM) is a model in which patients and clinicians work together to reach a decision about care, based on the available treatment options and patients’ preferences. SDM is seen as an ideal model for treatment decision-making that may lead to higher quality decisions and better health outcomes. SDM can be facilitated with patient decision aids (PtDAs) resulting in increased patients’ knowledge and decreased decisional ...
Translational Research Network in Motor Disorder Rehabilitation: Advancing understanding of variability in motor control and learning, to enhance clinical practice KU Leuven
The theoretical understanding of human motor control and learning has a strong impact on the diagnosis and treatment of motor disorders, and vice versa. Recent progress has been made in the understanding of motor control and learning, particularly with respect to understanding the functional role of neuro-behavioural variability that is inherent to sensorimotor control. However, this progress has not yet been transferred appropriately into ...
Examining barriers to providing good quality postnatal care:A mixed-methods study of global configurations of care and local clinical practice adaptations in Tanzania and Guinea. Institute of Tropical Medicine
and this problem is most urgent in low-resource contexts such as
sub-Saharan Africa. Close monitoring of women and babies during
the first hours and days after childbirth (the postnatal period) can
save many lives. More than half of births in low-resource countries
now occur in health facilities, which should make it easier to provide
postnatal ...
Handling technology with care: The introduction of next-generation sequencing in diagnostic clinical practice KU Leuven
When the human genome was first mapped at the beginning of the 2000s, the expectations for its impact on our understanding of human health and clinical care were high. The gained knowledge and related enthusiasm for future achievements propelled the development of faster and more cost-effective DNA sequencing techniques. This Next Generation of Sequencing (NGS) allows big components, or even the whole human genome, to be mapped in a rapid, ...
Development of decision support systems to manage QT-prolongation in clinical practice. KU Leuven
The risk of QTc-prolongation has become an important issue in drug safety. In rare cases it can lead to serious adverse events like Torsade de Pointes and sudden cardiac death. In the last decades, several drugs have been removed from the market (e.g. cisapride) or restricted in use (e.g. domperidone, (es)citalopram) because of this risk. At the moment, more than 170 drugs are linked with this risk of QTc-prolongation, as defined in the ...
Cone-beam Computed Tomography is a Fast and Promising Technique for Microstructural Imaging in Clinical Practice KU Leuven
Due to the rising life expectancy, bone and joint diseases (e.g., osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis) have become an important socioeconomic burden. For these diseases, the importance of assessing the bone’s microarchitecture make-up in clinical practice has been emphasized in basic science. However, it remains challenging to assess it in clinical practice.
High-resolution in vivo imaging became possible with the ...
The development, operationalisation and validation of a core outcome set for the evaluation of palliative sedation in clinical research and practice. Ghent University
Extensive debate surrounds the practice of palliative sedation (PS, i.e. sedative drugs to lower consciousness in patients nearing death), particularly given reports of improper application, suboptimal performance and poor communication. Initiatives undertaken to date to evaluate and improve PS were focused on a single outcome domain unlikely to reflect overall sedation quality and thus, leading to an incomplete evaluation of the overall PS ...
Diagnosing HEreditary predisposition syndromes for Childhood cancer: Implementation in clinical PRactice (DHECIPR) Ghent University
Cancer predisposition syndromes (CPS) are increasingly recognized as an important cause of pediatric cancer development. Hitherto in about 10 – 30% of childhood cancers CPSs were identified. This is most likely an underestimation since genetic testing for CPS in children has not yet become routine clinical practice. Signs pointing to predisposition are often missed or not present at young age, thus impeding adequate referral. Recently, the ...
Persistent pain in cancer survivors: how to assess in clinical practice KU Leuven
In clinical practice, guidelines for a comprehensive diagnosis of pain in cancer survivors are lacking. Several valid questionnaires exist to identify neuropathic pain in a clinical setting. However, these tools cannot discriminate between neuropathic and CS pain resulting in overestimation of neuropathic pain. Consequently, there is an urgent need for an improved tool for the identification of CS pain. Up to date, Quantitative Sensory Tests ...