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Workforce Lunchtime Lectures – The Australian Home Care Study: Prevalence, recognition and treatment of hearing, vision and dementia among vulnerable older Australians
September 27, 2023 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Professor Piers Dawes from University of Queensland will speak about this new project which highlights that over 70 per cent of people receiving home care have significant hearing and vision problems that are frequently undetected or under corrected. Up to 80 per cent are also living with cognitive impairment or dementia. Interactions between hearing, vision and cognitive impairments have a major effect on quality of life, functional ability and cost of care and increase likelihood of moving to residential aged care. Sensory impairments also impact on carers of people with dementia, increasing social isolation, depression, relationship stress and care burden. Sensory interventions may offer a practical and cost-effective way to reduce the impact of dementia, extend healthy active years of life and support people’s ability to age in place. The project will work with people with dementia, carers, and hearing, vision and aged care providers to adapt this European approach to develop home-based interventions that deliver holistic and multidisciplinary hearing and vision care after diagnosis to improve quality of life for people living with dementia and their carers. The intervention will be systematic, evidence-based and compatible with existing funding and service models for home care packages and provision of allied health hearing and vision care. The intervention will then be embedded and evaluated in real-world home care settings.