Resources

Karly Bartrim, aged care dietitian and researcher, explains the vital role of dietitians in supporting the health and wellbeing of older Australians and why this country’s aged care dietitian workforce needs to increase substantially in size and capacity.

Dr Priyanka Vandersman, Research Fellow, End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC), describes the ELDAC digital dashboard for tracking end-of-life care processes and indicators in aged care and explains why innovations of this kind are vital for transforming the sector.

Anthropologist and passionate musician, Dr Simone Marino, described the Co-musichiamo project in aged care, which explores the co-creation of songs and the relevance of music, migration life-storytelling, and first language to support the cultural identity and wellbeing of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds living with dementia.

Researchers at National Ageing Research Institute compare the pre- and post-pandemic ‘rollercoaster’ media coverage of loneliness experienced by older people living in residential aged care and the social support available to them. They find an increased media focus on these issues during the pandemic that needs to translate into ongoing initiatives for improving the mental health and wellbeing of aged care residents.

Kristina Walsh, Flinders University, describes the Compassionate Communities initiative that is promoting a whole of community approach to the end of life where dying, death and grief are a social and collective responsibility.

Despite recent Australian Government-commissioned strategies for fostering inclusion and equity of care, Dr Trish Cain and colleagues from Edith Cowan University explain why many Australian LGBTI older people continue to have negative expectations of aged care service quality.

Shona McQueen from Catholic Health Australia describes the work of End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC). This initiative, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, aims to improve the aged care workforce’s capacity to provide quality palliative and advance care planning.

In explaining the meaning of ‘meaningful activities’, Judith Leeson, Director of Vector Consultants, poses this question to her readers: How would you want to spend your days in residential aged care?

Despite a plethora of information on healthy ageing through reabling approaches, there continues to be an entrenched stereotype of individual ageing as an inevitable process of decline over which we have little control. Hilary O’Connell of iLA describes LiveUp—an initiative promoting early intervention to delay the decline of a person’s capacity to live or function independently.

Professor Josephine Clayton, Director of Palliative Care Research & Learning, HammondCare, describes the Advance Project Dementia Toolkit—a free online resource for clinicians, managers, and careworkers in aged care and primary care settings for building skills in initiating conversations about advance care planning and assessing the palliative care needs of people living with dementia.