The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) today
released the results of an evaluation of trials of short-term and
longer-term care interventions for people with dementia-related
high care needs.
The results of the Aged Care Innovative Pool Dementia Pilot,
which gathered information from 249 care recipients and 219 family
carers across nine different projects, are presented in the
National evaluation of the Aged Care Innovative Pool Dementia
Pilot: final report.
Report author, Ms Cathy Hales, said the Dementia Pilot projects
have enabled service providers to design and deliver care packages
with a dementia-specific focus.
'This means more care hours per week are available than from
most mainstream care packages. It also means more responsive and
flexible respite care and a greater capacity to address the needs
of family carers. Assistance was delivered by staff trained in
dementia care and case management and service coordination,' she
said.
Ms Hales said the Innovative Pool Dementia Pilot also
highlighted a shortage of specialist services for people with
dementia in regional and rural areas.
'The evaluation found that specialist services are needed to
operate alongside dementia specific care services to successfully
assist people with dementia to remain at home for as long as
possible.
'Diagnosis, medication review and behaviour management by
specialist psycho-geriatric clinicians were shown to be crucial
elements of multidisciplinary dementia care,' she said.
Another area highlighted by the report is the strain placed on
family members and others who care for people with dementia.
'Family carers often reported high levels of carer strain, such as
anxiety and insomnia. High level carer support and
dementia-specific respite care services, delivered through the
Pilot, assisted with alleviating some of that strain,' Ms Hales
said.
Pilot services directly addressed the causes of strain for
individual carers, providing them with assurance of ongoing
assistance and delivering services that allow carers to resume
their enjoyment of life.
Models of short-term care (8-12 weeks duration) addressed issues
of diagnosis and management of dementia, as well as the increased
support needs of people with dementia following hospitalisation or
when their existing support systems broke down.
Models of long-term care intervention focussed on delivering home
care packages that are the equivalent of high level residential
care.
28 July 2006
Further information: Ms Cathy Hales, AIHW, tel.
02 6244 1258
For media copies of the report: Publications
Officer, AIHW, tel. 61 2 6244 1032.
Availability: Check the AIHW Publications
Catalogue for availability of the National evaluation of
the Aged Care Innovative Pool Dementia Pilot: final
report.