Behaviour support programs
People with dementia can experience changes in behaviour and mood that impact their quality of life, health outcomes and care needs. These are known as the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (or BPSD). In Australia, there are three Commonwealth Government supported programs that aim to help people experiencing changed behaviours, according to symptom severity:
- the Dementia Behaviour Management Advisory Service for mild to moderate symptoms,
- Severe Behaviour Response Teams for more severe symptoms, and
- the Specialist Dementia Care Program transitional residential care for those with very severe BPSD.
Refer to the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia for more information about BPSD.
Dementia Behaviour Management Advisory Service is delivered by Dementia Support Australia. It is a mobile workforce of health and allied health professionals who provide support for people living with dementia and their carers, whose wellbeing or care is impacted by the presence of mild to moderate behaviours and psychological symptoms of dementia. The Dementia Behaviour Management Advisory Service supports people with dementia and their carers living in community and residential care.
The Severe Behaviour Response Teams are also delivered by Dementia Support Australia and provide support for people living with dementia and their carers, whose wellbeing or care is impacted by the presence of severe behaviours and psychological symptoms of dementia. Severe Behaviour Response Teams support people with dementia and their carers residing in Commonwealth-funded residential aged care homes, multi-purpose services, or flexibly funded services.
The Specialist Dementia Care Program provides a person-centred, multidisciplinary approach to care for people experiencing very severe BPSD, whose behaviours may put them or others at risk, or otherwise mean they are unable to be appropriately cared for by mainstream aged care services. The Specialist Dementia Care Program is implemented through specialised dementia care units typically located within existing residential aged care homes and offers specialised, transitional residential support in a small dementia friendly unit, focusing on reducing or stabilising symptoms over time, with the aim of enabling people to move to less intensive care settings.
Between July 2023 and June 2024 Dementia Support Australia had just over 19,900 referrals to their Dementia Behaviour Management Advisory Service and Severe Behaviour Response Team programs. This included almost 17,800 to the Dementia Behaviour Management Advisory Service and over 2,100 to the Severe Behaviour Response Teams. Almost 95% of these were new referrals to the programs.
The number of referrals to these Dementia Support Australia programs has more than doubled over the past 7 years. Back in 2018–19 they had 7,700 referrals to their programs, including 6,900 referrals to the Dementia Behaviour Management Advisory Service and nearly 800 referrals to the Severe Behaviour Response Teams.
This increase is likely due to increased awareness of Dementia Support Australia, combined with a growing awareness of the importance of supporting people experiencing behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia in Australia. Inadequate care for this group was highlighted in the Royal Commission into Aged Care, Quality and Safety.
Figure 11.1 shows a dashboard highlighting key information on the profile of referrals supported by Dementia Support Australia. For example, between January and June 2024, there were 10,362 referrals, of which 600 are repeat referrals.
Figure 11.1: Profile of referrals supported by Dementia Support Australia
The dashboard shows an overview of statistics related to referrals, including number of referrals by sex, repeat referrals and average age of people being referred. Pie charts and bar charts show the percentage of people being referred by their accommodation type, diagnosis type, state/territory and remoteness area. A radio button allows the option to view the statistics by period.
