Dementia in Aged Care: Symptoms, Settings, and Services in Australia

This report provides an overview of dementia in aged care, focusing on the neurodegenerative disease's impact on memory, cognitive skills, and behavior, particularly among older adults. It highlights the Australian context, including statistics on prevalence, the role of residential healthcare settings, and the significance of dementia as a leading cause of death. The report details the stages and symptoms of dementia, from early forgetfulness to late-stage communication difficulties and the associated co-morbidities such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It also explores aged care settings, the services available in Australia, and specific provisions for dementia management, particularly in urban and rural areas. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of aged care services in improving the quality of life for older adults with dementia, supported by relevant references.

Dementia in Aged Care
Presented by:

Introduction
• Dementia is a neurodegenerative
disease
• It leads to gradual deterioration in
memory, cognitive skills, and
behavioural skills
• Hamper in the neurological and
cognitive skills create barrier in
performing activities of daily living
• Dementia mainly affects older people
however it is not a part of normal
ageing
(World Health Organisation 2019)

Dementia in Aged Care in Australia
• As per the Australian statistics, nearly one out of
ten Australians in who are aged over 65 years is
suffering from dementia during the year 2016.
• Nearly 354,000 Australian are estimated to have
dementia during the year 2016
• Among the total number of dementia patients in
Australia, 52% of the patients resides under the
residential healthcare settings and rest resides
under in-patient settings
• 11,000 occurs in Australia due to dementia
making it second leading cause of death in
Australia
• (Australian Institute of Health Welfare 2018)

Symptoms of Dementia
There are three stages of dementia like
• Early stage
• Inability to track time
• Losing direction in familiar places
• Increased sense of forgetfulness
• Middle stage
• Forgetting recent events and name of the near and dear ones
• Becoming lost at home
• Forgetting to take medicines
• Requiring person care assistance while at home for conducting daily living activities
• Behavioural changes
• Late stage
• Becoming unaware of place and time
• Having difficulty in communicating
• Difficulty in walking
• Increased need in assisted self-care
• Difficulty in maintaining hand eye co-ordination

Co-morbidities Associated with Dementia
• Development of cardiovascular
disease, diabetes and arthritis
during the middle or end stage
of dementia
• The during end or the middle
stage of dementia, development
of co-morbidities among the
older adults make it difficult for
to provide comprehensive care
under residential settings

Aged-care Settings
• Aged care setting is defined a kind of
healthcare settings
• It is a special-purpose facility that provides
accommodation to the older adults
suffering from various disease co-
morbidities
• Under aged care settings, the primary health
care is taken into consideration under the
active supervision of trained nurses
• Assistance is also provided in order to
accomplish activities of daily living (Dyer et
al. 2018)

Aged Care Service in Australia
• The Australian aged care
services offer care under
different healthcare setting
• The residential aged care
services provide care for the
older adults under the
residential healthcare facilities
• In Australia, there are 886
organizations who provide
residential care for the older
adults through 2,695 services
(Australian Institute of Health
and Welfare 2017)

Aged-Care Services for Dementia
• In Australia, the aged care
services are concentrated
in the densely populated
urban areas
• Aboriginals or the Torres
Strait Islanders in the
rural areas are given
certain flexible aged care
services for dementia
management

Conclusion
• Thus above the above discussion it can be
stated that
• Dementia is common among the older
adults
• It hampers the quality of life of the older
adults as it hampers the activities of daily
living
• Aged care services is availed during middle
or late stage of dementia
• Aged care services helps to improve the
quality of life of older adults with dementia

References
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2017. Services and places in aged care. Access date:
13th June 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.gen-agedcaredata.gov.au/Topics/Services-and-places-in-aged-care
• Australian Institute of Health Welfare. 2018. Dementia. Access date: 13th June 2019. Retrieved
from:
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/health-conditions-disability-deaths/dementia/overvie
w
• Bunn, F., Burn, A.M., Goodman, C., Rait, G., Norton, S., Robinson, L., Schoeman, J. and Brayne,
C., 2014. Comorbidity and dementia: a scoping review of the literature. BMC medicine, 12(1),
p.192.
• De Fazio, P., Ciambrone, P., Cerminara, G., Barbuto, E., Bruni, A., Gentile, P., Talarico, A.,
Lacava, R., Gareri, P. and Segura-Garcia, C., 2015. Depressive symptoms in caregivers of
patients with dementia: demographic variables and burden. Clinical interventions in aging, 10,
p.1085.
• Dyer, S.M., Gnanamanickam, E.S., Liu, E., Whitehead, C. and Crotty, M., 2018. Diagnosis of
dementia in residential aged care settings in Australia: An opportunity for improvements in
quality of care?. Australasian journal on ageing, 37(4), pp.E155-E158.
• Livingston, G., Sommerlad, A., Orgeta, V., Costafreda, S.G., Huntley, J., Ames, D., Ballard, C.,
Banerjee, S., Burns, A., Cohen-Mansfield, J. and Cooper, C., 2017. Dementia prevention,
intervention, and care. The Lancet, 390(10113), pp.2673-2734.
• World Health Organisation. 2019. Dementia. Access date: 13th June 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia