April 2018

Physical activity and the odds of developing MND

From the MND Research Blog: "Physical activity has always been at the forefront of factors associated with MND, but studies investigating its effect have often been conflicting. The reason why we might see contrasting results is often due to different cohorts and numbers of people included in the study, the method by which the data was collected, or the types of questions asked and the way they were presented. Increased number of studies on the same topic might then improve the way these are conducted in the future and provide more reliable conclusions. The most recent multi-centre study that included over 1,500 people with MND and nearly 3,000 control participants was conducted by the Euro-MOTOR consortium under the leadership of Prof Leonard van den Berg. Today (24 April),

Thai-riffic Night of Food and Fun

Thank you to Joanne Blissenden and everyone who helped organise the recent Thai-riffic Night fundraising evening in Dural. The fundraiser was held in memory of their friend Laurence who passed away after a short battle with MND. Joanne said the evening was a great success with $5,175 raised through the dinner, raffles and lucky dips. Joanne and her husband also completed the ice bucket challenge! Thank you to everyone who attended and supported the event.

Carnarvon Golf Charity Day

This is the second year that Carnarvon Golf Club have supported MND NSW with a charity golf day, this year raising $6,004. Thank you to everyone who helped organise the day, to the golfers for your support and to everyone who made a donation. Special thanks to Sharon Honeybrook who once again organised the event, and to the club for their generous donation of the green fees from the day.

New voice banking initiative announced by Project Revoice

Project Revoice have announced plans to develop a new voice banking service, advising it will take just two to three hours of recordings for the creation of the digital voice clone. Project Revoice was funded through the Ice Bucket Challenge and is a collaboration between Lyrebird in Canada, Finch and Rumble Studios in Sydney and the ALS Association in the USA. Voice banking uses a digital recording of a person's voice which is provided to a commercial provider who then artificially creates a voice file, that is not the person's actual voice, but a similar, synthesised voice that has a much wider vocabulary than originally recorded. If, later in motor neurone disease progression,

Central Coast Support Group

Thank you to Wendy Whitmore and the Central Coast Support Group for their donation of $970 from funds raised through a recent Rotary Club raffle.