Ageing & Culture, Caregiving, International Campaigns, International Policies, Research & Best Practice

World’s largest dementia study reveals 2/3 of people think dementia is a normal part of ageing

Posted on September 27, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

News Release
September 2019| Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI): World’s largest dementia study reveals two thirds of people think dementia is a normal part of ageing, rather than a medical condition

95 per cent of participants think they could develop dementia in their lifetime – a survey of 70,000 people across 155 countries reveals

2 in 3 people still think that dementia is a normal part of ageing
62 per cent of healthcare practitioners still think it is a normal part of ageing
Over 50% of healthcare practitioners agree that their own colleagues ignore people living with dementia and 33% of people thought that if they had dementia, they would not be listened to by health professionals
1 in 5 people attribute dementia to bad luck, almost 10 per cent to God’s will and 2 per cent to witchcraft
Every 3 seconds someone in the world develops dementia
London, Friday 20 September – Results from the world’s largest survey on attitudes to dementia reveals a startling lack of global knowledge around dementia, with two thirds of people still thinking the disease is a normal part of ageing rather than a neurodegenerative disorder.

Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI), the international federation of 100 Alzheimer associations and federations around the world, ahead of World Alzheimer’s Day tomorrow (21 September) with the release of the World Alzheimer Report 2019: Attitudes to dementia. The report reveals the results of the largest attitudes to dementia survey ever undertaken, with responses from almost 70,000 people across 155 countries and territories. Analysis of the study was carried out by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

The report reveals that stigma around dementia is preventing people from seeking the information, advice, support and medical help that could dramatically improve their length and quality of life for what is one of the world’s fastest growing causes of death globally. The number of people living with dementia is forecast to more than triple, from over 50 million currently, to 152 million by 2050.

“Stigma is the single biggest barrier limiting people around the world from dramatically improving how they live with dementia,” says ADI’s Chief Executive Paola Barbarino. “The consequences of stigma are therefore incredibly important to understand. At the individual level, stigma can undermine life goals and reduce participation in meaningful life activities as well as lower levels of well-being and quality of life. At the societal level, structural stigma and discrimination can influence levels of funding allocated to care and support.”

The report reveals astonishing attitudes towards dementia. Survey respondents included people living with dementia, carers, healthcare practitioners and the general public. A major cause for concern from the report, is the number of people across the world who think that dementia is a natural part of the ageing process.

Forty-eight per cent of respondents believe a person with dementia’s memory will never improve, even with medical support, while one in four people think there is nothing we can do to prevent dementia. These are major barriers to people accessing help, advice and support.

The report reveals that dementia stigma is similar to stigma often associated with mental health, focussed on age and is accentuated by a lack of available medical treatments. In reality, many forms of support exist around the world. Talking and planning can help people to live well with dementia for as long as possible.

“Currently, there is very little information about how stigma manifests in relation to people with dementia and how this may vary around the world,” Barbarino continues. “This detailed survey and report now give us a baseline of information for dementia-related stigma at a global, regional and national level. We’re hopeful these findings can kick start positive reform and change globally.”

The report finds that over 50% of healthcare practitioners agree that their own colleagues ignore people living with dementia and 33% of people thought that if they had dementia, they would not be listened to by health professionals.

Interestingly, 95 per cent of participants think they could develop dementia in their lifetime and over two thirds of people (69.3 per cent) would take a genetic profiling test to learn whether they are at risk of dementia (even though there is currently no disease-modifying treatment). However, two thirds of people still think dementia is a natural part of ageing. The fear of developing dementia is high globally, but the true understanding of the disease is low. This is worrying, as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are the 5th leading cause of death globally.

Sara Evans-Lacko, Associate Professorial Research Fellow at the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, LSE, said: “Whereas most stigma studies look at public knowledge and or attitudes, this is the first study to look at the behavioural element – the data collected highlight actual experiences of people. For LSE it has been enriching to be part of the first attempt to create a baseline on dementia attitudes. We are delighted to have been able to bring our rigour and analytical expertise to the table and are conscious of the tremendous importance of this exercise at a global level.”

ADI launched its global campaign ‘Let’s Talk About Dementia’, on 1 September 2019 to mark the beginning of the month of awareness. The campaign is based on the understanding that talking about dementia helps tackle the stigma, normalises language and encourages people to find out more, seek help, advice and support.

Dementia blogger and journalist Pippa Kelly says it is vitally important that as a society we have more conversations about dementia to create better understanding. “Stigma stems from fear. Fear breeds silence, which in turn perpetuates ignorance and misunderstanding,” Kelly says.

Every 3 seconds someone in the world develops dementia but most people with dementia do not receive a diagnosis or support. The annual cost of dementia is over US$ 1 trillion – a figure set to double by 2030. Deaths due to dementias more than doubled between 2000 and 2016, making it the 5th leading cause of global deaths in 2016 compared to 14th in 2000.

The “Let’s Talk About Dementia” campaign simply aims to stimulate a conversation about dementia, the warning signs, risk reduction, who to speak to and where to go for advice. Lack of knowledge about dementia leads to inaccurate assumptions about its effects on the person and their family, as well as negative stereotypes about how a person with dementia will behave, Barbarino says. “Evidence suggests that when people living with dementia and their families are well prepared and supported, initial feelings of shock, anger and grief are balanced by a sense of reassurance and empowerment, so the campaign’s focus is on increasing conversations around dementia globally.”

The full World Alzheimer’s Report 2019: Attitudes to dementia, is available to read here.

For story ideas, interview requests and more information, please contact:

Alzheimer’s Disease International

Annabelle Dick
Mana Communications
T: +64 (0)27 819 7011
E: ad@manacommunications.com

Annie Bliss
Alzheimer’s Disease International
T: +44 20 7981 0886
E: a.bliss@alz.co.uk

About World Alzheimer’s Month

World Alzheimer’s Month is the international campaign every September to raise awareness and challenge the stigma that surrounds dementia. September 2019 will mark the 8th World Alzheimer’s Month. The campaign was launched in 2012: World Alzheimer’s Day is on 21 September each year. For more information, please visit: https://www.alz.co.uk/world-alzheimers-month

About Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI)

ADI is the international federation of 100 Alzheimer associations and federations around the world, in official relations with the World Health Organization. ADI’s vision is prevention, care and inclusion today, and cure tomorrow. ADI believes that the key to winning the fight against dementia lies in a unique combination of global solutions and local knowledge. ADI works locally, by empowering Alzheimer associations to promote and offer care and support for persons with dementia and their care partners, while working globally to focus attention on dementia and campaign for policy change. For more information, please visit http://www.alz.co.uk.

Caregiving, Research & Best Practice, The Built Environment

Using technology to support caregivers of older people with dementia

Posted on September 19, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

Technology can be used to support the caregivers of people living with dementia, however, developers and designers need to take caregiver needs into consideration.
Shutterstock

Janet Fast, University of Alberta

In June, the government of Canada released its long-awaited Dementia Strategy for Canada: Together We Aspire.

As a family caregiving researcher for more than two decades and a former family caregiver to my father, who had dementia, the strategy was welcome news. But my own research and personal experience suggest that we’re falling short of the aspiration to be “a Canada in which all people living with dementia and caregivers are valued and supported.”

I agree, perhaps selfishly, that research and innovation are essential for effective implementation of the dementia strategy. AGE-WELL NCE, Canada’s technology and aging network, engages older people, caregivers, product developers and designers in the development of technologies that can make their lives better.

I co-lead the AGE-WELL research project that is responsible for adding to what we already know about caregivers’ needs, developing new technologies to meet those needs and advocating for new policies and practices that will reduce the negative consequences of care. My team’s work shows clearly that caregiving takes a toll on the nearly half million Canadians caring for a family member or friend with dementia. Other caregivers also pay a price: poorer physical and mental health, social isolation and loneliness, financial hardship and insecurity. But that price is steeper when caring for someone with dementia.

Caring time and labour

Caregiving is time-consuming for all caregivers, averaging nine-and-a-half hours per week. It is more time-intensive for dementia caregivers, who provide more than 13 hours per week on average. Collectively, those half million dementia caregivers spent 342 million hours on care tasks in 2012, the equivalent of more than 171,000 full-time employees.

Care also is a different experience for men and women and these differences are more pronounced among dementia caregivers than others. Women dementia caregivers are more likely than men to experience negative health, social, employment and financial outcomes.

Layer on persistent gender wage discrimination and ineffective financial compensation strategies and it’s little wonder that a quarter of female dementia carers experienced care-related financial hardship. These caregivers often modify spending or defer savings to cover care-related expenses. This was a problem for only one in seven of their male counterparts.

Technological support

Existing technologies that can make caregivers’ jobs easier include GPS-enabled tracking and monitoring systems, smartphone and tablet applications, emergency alert systems, tele-health services, networking platforms and many others. But technology adoption and retention is poor, with 70 to 90 per cent of innovations failing.

An understanding caregivers’ needs can help technology developers in the design of apps and products that meet those needs.
Shutterstock

Sometimes this is because available technologies don’t meet caregiver needs very well. Many product designers and developers create the technology for the sake of it, without knowing whether caregivers want it or are prepared to use it. As a result, technology can have both negative and positive impacts on caregivers.

Traditional problem‐focused approaches to technology design can limit discussions to performing caregiving tasks, and fail to capture the complexity of “being in care relationships.” Product developers and designers need to understand caregivers’ complicated lives and unique needs if they’re to develop successful strategies for developing, promoting and delivering technologies to support family caregivers effectively.

Disrupting how we develop technologies by integrating caregivers into design practice so that it’s their experiences and expertise that drive the process is more likely to lead to products and services that solve their real-life problems, improve their well-being and, ultimately, succeed in the marketplace.

Supporting caregivers

While there are technologies and services that can help support caregivers, it’s usually up to caregivers to find them. Navigating a fragmented system of health and social supports is challenging, time-consuming, frustrating and often futile.

One of our team’s projects is addressing this challenge by applying a new type of artificial intelligence called cognitive computing. We have created an online tool that connects family caregivers to products that will support them and their family member or friend with dementia.

It will be far more specific and powerful than the usual search engines, allowing family carers to describe in plain language the problem they want to solve.

CARE-RATE uses cognitive computing to support caregivers looking for information and support.

A second project uses a co-creation process that taps caregivers’ experiences to develop a web portal that provides ongoing follow-up and training in the use of mobility aids such as canes, walkers, wheelchairs or scooters, when and where they need it.

A third project is asking caregivers to tell [researchers] about their preferences and priorities for technological solutions to some of their biggest challenges.

As our population grows older, disability rates increase and pressure on our health and continuing care sectors also grows. We have to understand, recognize and support family caregivers and their valuable work if we’re to meet the challenge.

Of course, technology alone is not enough to sustain the largely unpaid work of family caregivers. According to University of Birmingham social policy professor Paul Burstow, “getting the balance right between ‘tech’ and ‘touch’ is vital.”

From my perspective:

“We need to recognize the value of family caregivers’ work and their right to ‘have a life[’]; ensure that there are adequate, accessible and affordable services for care receivers and caregivers; organize workplaces and labour policy so that caregivers can keep earning a living alongside their care work as long as possible; and when caregiving still results in financial hardship for some, we need to be ready with anti-poverty measures.”

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Janet Fast, Professor and Co-Director, Research on Aging, Policies and Practice, University of Alberta

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Caregiving, Dementia

Apathy: The forgotten symptom of dementia

Posted on July 19, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

Press Release
July 2019| University of Exeter – Apathy: The forgotten symptom of dementia

Apathy is the most common neuropsychiatric symptom of dementia, with a bigger impact on function than memory loss – yet it is under-researched and often forgotten in care.

photo of elderly man sitting on wooden chair outside house — Photo by weedlyr on Pexels.com

A new study has found that apathy is present nearly half of all people with dementia, with researchers finding it is often distinct from depression.

Although common, apathy is often ignored as it is less disruptive in settings such as care homes than symptoms like aggression. Defined by a loss of interest and emotions, it is extremely distressing for families and it is linked with more severe dementia and worse clinical symptoms.

Now, research led by the University of Exeter and presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in LA has analysed 4,320 people with Alzheimer’s disease from 20 cohort studies, to look at the prevalence of apathy over time.

At the start of the study, 45% presented with apathy, and 20% had persistent apathy over time. Researchers found that a proportion had apathy without depression, which suggests that the symptom might have its own unique clinical and biological profile when compared to apathy with depression and depression only.

Miguel de Silva Vasconcelos, PhD student at the University of Exeter and King’s College London, said : “Apathy is an under-researched and often ignored symptom of dementia. It can be overlooked because people with apathy seem less disruptive and less engaging, but it has a huge impact on the quality of life of people living with dementia, and their families. Where people withdraw from activities, it can accelerate cognitive decline and we know that there are higher mortality rates in people with apathy. It’s now time this symptom was recognised and prioritised in research and understanding.”

Professor Clive Ballard, of the University of Exeter Medical School, said: “Apathy is the forgotten symptom of dementia, yet it can have devastating consequences. Our research shows just how common apathy is in people with dementia, and we now need to understand it better so we can find effective new treatments. Our WHELD study to improve care home staff training through personalised care and social interaction included an exercise programme that improved apathy, so we know we can make a difference. This is a real opportunity for interventions that could significantly benefit thousands of people with dementia.”

The presentation was entitled ‘The Course of Apathy in People with Dementia’.

Ageing & Culture, Caregiving, Dementia, Research & Best Practice

Our ailing aged care system shows you can’t skimp on nursing care

Posted on June 28, 2019June 28, 2019 by Joanna Sun

The royal commission has scrutinised aged care staffing.
From shutterstock.com

Apil Gurung, University of the Sunshine Coast and Samantha Edwards, University of the Sunshine Coast

Staff shortages and a lack of training have once again emerged as key issues underpinning the nation’s aged care crisis, as the aged care royal commission hears testimony in Perth.

Registered nurse Noleen Hausler shared the experience of her 98-year-old father, Clarence, who was force-fed, assaulted and had a serviette held over his nose by a carer who was later convicted of aggravated assault.

Aside from this criminal behaviour, Ms Hausler said the standards at her father’s aged care facility declined after a new operator reduced staffing levels and employed carers with little training. Call bells went unanswered, she said, and incontinence pads were rationed.

Ms Hausler has called for increased ratios of registered nurses in aged care facilities, and better training and registration for carers.

Under-staffing and inadequate training have long been problems in Australia’s aged care facilities, with aged care facilities employing fewer registered and enrolled nurses and more carers who have lower levels of training.

Who does what in aged care?

A registered nurse (RN) provides nursing leadership and clinical supervision in aged care facilities. They are skilled clinicians who can respond to medical emergencies and are qualified to carry out assessments.

Registered nurses undergo three years of undergraduate study at university and are registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) in order to practise in health care setting across Australia.

An enrolled nurse (EN) conducts observations and assessments, and collaborates with and seeks assistance from the registered nurse in charge. Enrolled nurses are registered with AHPRA and undergo an 18-month diploma of nursing at TAFE.

Finally, care workers form the bulk of the aged care workforce and perform tasks such as showering, dressing and feeding residents. Titles for carers vary and include assistant in nursing, personal care worker, personal care attendant, and aged care worker, to name a few.

Care workers are required to complete a certificate III-level course, which can take up to six or seven months, but don’t require registration.

Carers cost less than nurses

There is no clear legislation requiring a certain number of registered nurses, enrolled nurses and carers to be on duty at certain point in time. The Aged Care Act 1997 is open to interpretation, so aged care providers are largely free to set their own staffing levels.

As a result, in recent years aged care operators have recruited proportionally fewer registered and enrolled nurses and increasing numbers of unregulated carers.

Residents in aged care have complex needs, and those looking after them need to be equipped.
From shutterstock.com

The changing make up of the aged care workforce is mainly influenced by economic advantage: hiring carers is cheaper than hiring registered or enrolled nurses.

It can also be difficult to find enough nurses. Nurse retention in aged care has been a major challenge for the industry because aged care providers often pay lower wages than hospitals.

But nursing care is worth the investment

Research shows having a greater number of registered nurses increases patients’ well-being and safety. Better staffing levels allow nurses to spend more time caring for residents and reduces the likelihood that vital information is overlooked.

Adequately staffing aged care facilities has economic benefits by reducing staff turnover related to burnout and job dissatisfaction.

Employing skilled registered nurses in aged care facilities can also save the health system money by reducing the number of costly hospital admissions that arise because residents can’t be adequately cared for in their aged care facility.

Aged care residents often have mental health issues, face cognitive decline or dementia, take multiple medications each day, are physically frail, and often have multiple chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis or asthma.

But it’s difficult to meet the needs of these patients with the current aged care staffing and skill levels.

More than 50% of the residents in a residential aged care facilities have some form of dementia, for example, yet more than 50% of aged care workers have no dementia training.

Substituting registered nurses with lesser skilled carers has meant tasks such as medication management have been assigned to carers in some aged care facilities, despite this being a high-risk task that requires a high level of skill and experience.

What are the solutions?

Carers currently make up around 70% of the aged care workforce. We need to reset aged care staffing levels and ensure we have the right skill sets, which industry bodies suggest is: 30% registered nurses, 20% enrolled nurses and 50% care workers.

It’s also time to professionalise caring roles with better regulation and the introduction of carer registration.

Registration would clarify carers’ roles and allow only the delegation of tasks which are deemed safe for carers to carry out within their scope of practice. It would also ensure minimum training standards are met and that quality and safety is maintained.

The aim is not to vilify carers, who are the backbone of our aged care system, but rather to highlight the need for the right level of training, education and support to strengthen the aged care workforce and complement the care provided by registered and enrolled nurses.

Finally, we also need to increase the number of registered and enrolled nurses in the aged care workforce with guided pathways to attract and retain nurses. Well-structured graduate nurse programs, for instance, can provide support and guidance to the graduates who are considering a career in aged care.

Apil Gurung, Lecturer, University of the Sunshine Coast and Samantha Edwards, Lecturer in Nursing, University of the Sunshine Coast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Caregiving, International Campaigns, International Policies, Research & Best Practice

Dementia more preventable in Asia and Latin America

Posted on April 22, 2019April 18, 2019 by Joanna Sun

News Release
April 2019 | University College London, Gower Street, London – Dementia more preventable in Asia and Latin America

Close to one in two cases of dementia could be preventable in low- to middle-income countries, finds a new UCL study.

Dancing in Peru
The findings, published in The Lancet Global Health, found how improving childhood education and other health outcomes throughout life could reduce the risk of dementia.

“After our previous research finding that one in three cases of dementia could be preventable, we realised that the evidence was skewed towards higher-income countries,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Naaheed Mukadam (UCL Psychiatry).

“We have now found that in low- to middle-income countries in Asia and Latin America, dementia may be even more preventable than it is in more wealthy countries. If life-course risk factors such as low levels of education in early life and hearing loss, obesity and low physical activity in mid-life to old age are addressed, these countries could see large improvements in their dementia rates.”

While the number of people with dementia is increasing globally, particularly in low- to middle-income countries, there have been modest reductions in age-specific dementia rates in many high-income countries over the last two decades.* The researchers say this could be due to improvements in health outcomes throughout life that affect dementia risk.

The research team built on their previous work for the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care, published in 2017, which found that 35% of dementia is attributable to nine risk factors: low levels of childhood education, hearing loss, smoking, hypertension, obesity, physical inactivity, social isolation, depression, and diabetes.*

To understand whether the commission’s findings would apply equally to global regions that were underrepresented in the report, a team of UCL researchers sought out data from China, India and Latin America. They drew from the research collective 10/66 Dementia Research Group’s data, which used similar methodology to gauge prevalence of the nine risk factors in those countries, with sample sizes of 1,000 to 3,000 in each country.

The researchers found even more potential for preventing dementia across the globe, as the proportion of dementia linked to the nine modifiable risk factors was 40% in China, 41% in India and 56% in Latin America.

A major factor in that difference is the lower levels of educational attainment in low- to middle-income countries, which the researchers say signals hope for the future, as education levels rise.

“People growing up in Asia and Latin America today are more likely to have completed schooling than their parents and grandparents were, meaning they should be less at risk of dementia later in life than people who are already over 65. Continuing to improve access to education could reap great benefits for dementia rates in years to come,” Dr Mukadam said.

On the other hand, social isolation is a major risk factor of dementia in higher income countries, but much less so in China and Latin America. The researchers say that public health officials in countries such as the UK could learn from China and Latin America in efforts to build more connected communities to buffer against the dementia risk tied to social isolation.

Obesity and hearing loss in mid-life, and physical activity in later life, were also strongly linked to dementia risk in the study area, as well as mid-life hypertension in China and Latin America and smoking in later-life in India.

“Reducing the prevalence of all of these risk factors clearly has numerous health benefits, so here we’ve identified an added incentive to support public health interventions that could also reduce dementia rates. The growing global health burden of dementia is an urgent priority, so anything that could reduce dementia risk could have immense social and economic benefit,” Dr Mukadam said.

Senior author Professor Gill Livingston (UCL Psychiatry) added: “A lot of the findings of health and medical research derive primarily from higher income countries such as in Western Europe and North America, so ensuring that research is inclusive is vital to the development of global public health strategies.”

“While we don’t expect these risk factors to be eliminated entirely, even modest improvements could have immense impact on dementia rates. Delaying the onset of dementia by just five years would halve its prevalence*,” she said.

The researchers are supported by the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome, NIHR, Economic and Social Research Council, and NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care North Thames.

Links
Research paper in The Lancet Global Health
Dr Naaheed Mukadam’s academic profile
UCL Psychiatry
* The Lancet Commission on dementia, prevention, intervention and care
Image
People dancing in Peru. Credit: Alex Proimos, Source: Flickr
Media contact
Chris Lane
tel: +44 20 7679 9222

E: chris.lane [at] ucl.ac.uk

Caregiving, International Policies, Research & Best Practice, The Built Environment

Australia’s residential aged care facilities are getting bigger and less home-like

Posted on April 18, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

File 20180921 129847 1di589.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Residential aged care facilities should be more like a home and less like a hospital.
from shutterstock.com

Ralph Hampson, University of Melbourne

Most older people want to stay at home as long as they can. When this is no longer possible, they move into residential aged care facilities, which become their home. But Australia’s care facilities for the aged are growing in size and becoming less home-like.

In 2010–11, 54% of residential aged care facilities in major Australian cities had more than 60 places, and the size of the average facility is growing.

Today, more than 200,000 Australians live or stay in residential aged care on any given day. There are around 2,672 such facilities in Australia. This equates to an average of around 75 beds per facility.

Large institutions for people with disability and mental illness, as well as orphaned children, were once commonplace. But now – influenced by the 1960s deinstitutionalisation movement – these have been closed down and replaced with smaller community-based services. In the case of aged care, Australia has gone the opposite way.

Why is smaller better?

Evidence shows that aged care residents have better well-being when given opportunities for self-determination and independence. Internationally, there has been a move towards smaller living units where the design encourages this. These facilities feel more like a home than a hospital.

The World Health Organisation has indicated that such models of care, where residents are also involved in running the facility, have advantages for older people, families, volunteers and care workers, and improve the quality of care.

In the US, the Green House Project has built more than 185 homes with around 10-12 residents in each. Studies show Green House residents’ enhanced quality of life doesn’t compromise clinical care or running costs.

Older people have a better quality of life if they can be involved in outdoor activities.
from shutterstock.com

Around 50% of residents living in aged care facilities have dementia. And research has shown that a higher quality of life for those with dementia is associated with buildings that help them engage with a variety of activities both inside and outside, are familiar, provide a variety of private and community spaces and the amenities and opportunities to take part in domestic activities.

In June 2018, an Australian study found residents with dementia in aged-care facilities that provided a home-like model of care had far better quality of life and fewer hospitalisations than those in more standard facilities. The home-like facilities had up to 15 residents.

The study also found the cost of caring for older people in the smaller facilities was no higher, and in some cases lower, than in institutionalised facilities.

There are some moves in Australia towards smaller aged care services. For example, aged care provider Wintringham has developed services with smaller facilities for older people who are homeless. Wintringham received the Building and Social Housing Foundation World Habitat Award 1997 for Wintringham Port Melbourne Hostel. Its innovative design actively worked against the institutional model.

Bigger and less home-like

Historically, nursing homes in Australia were small facilities, with around 30 beds each, often run as family businesses or provided by not-for-profit organisations. Between 2002 and 2013 the proportion of facilities with more than 60 beds doubled to 48.6%. Financial viability rather than quality of care drove the increase in size.

Today, around 45% of facilities are operated by the private for-profit sector, 40% by religious and charitable organisations, 13% by community-based organisations, 3% by state and territory governments, and less than 1% by local governments.

In 2016, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) reported that residential care services run by government organisations were more likely to be in small facilities. One-fifth (22%) of places in these facilities are in services with 20 or fewer places. Almost half (49%) of privately-run residential places are found in services with more than 100 places.

All of this means that more older Australians are living out their last days in an institutional environment.

Once larger facilities become the norm, it will be difficult to undo. Capital infrastructure is built to have an average 40-year life, which will lock in the institutional model of aged care.

The built environment matters. The royal commission provides an opportunity to fundamentally critique the institutional model.

Ralph Hampson, Senior Lecturer, Health and Ageing, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Caring time and labour

Technological support

Supporting caregivers

Press Release July 2019| University of Exeter – Apathy: The forgotten symptom of dementia

Apathy is the most common neuropsychiatric symptom of dementia, with a bigger impact on function than memory loss – yet it is under-researched and often forgotten in care.

Who does what in aged care?

Carers cost less than nurses

But nursing care is worth the investment

What are the solutions?

Why is smaller better?

Bigger and less home-like

Press Release
July 2019| University of Exeter – Apathy: The forgotten symptom of dementia