Dementia Care

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R E S O U R C E S / E V E N T S
Vol 5 No 3 June/July 2016 Australian Journal of Dementia Care 39
Dementia design
The Dementia-Friendly Home
is a new tablet app that
recommends practical changes
carers can make in the home to
assist the person living with
dementia. The app, launched by
Alzheimer’s Australia Vic, uses
interactive 3D game technology
to simulate a home environment
and offers prompts with ideas for
making the space more
accessible to someone with
dementia. Users navigate around
the virtual home and can tap on
rooms and objects in the home to
find out why certain designs or
decorations might cause
problems, and suitable
alternatives. Many of the app
suggestions are small,
inexpensive ideas, such as
placing labels with pictures on
cupboard doors. More significant
changes include installing motion
sensors that turn lights on and off
when people walk through the
house and changing busily
patterned wall or floor coverings.
The app is based on the 10
Dementia Enabling Environment
Principles developed by
Professor Richard Fleming and
Kirsty Bennett at the University of
Wollongong (www.enabling
html). The Dementia-Friendly
Home app is available from the
App Store and the Google Play
store for $2.99. Details at:
Key principles for improving
healthcare environments for
people with dementia also
uses the 10 Dementia Enabling
Environment Principles referred
to above to provide guidance in
designing new and refurbished
inpatient units to accommodate
people with dementia.
Developed in 2014 by ACI (the
NSW Agency for Clinical
Innovation) in collaboration with
the Confused Hospitalised Older
Persons (CHOPS) steering
committee, it’s based on
evidence-based practice and
expert opinion and offers a
systematic approach to
assessing existing inpatient units
and planning refurbishments.
The publication describes the 10
key principles that define an
appropriate physical
environment for people with
dementia in hospital and
describes the use of audit tools
to help identify areas for
improvement. It’s freely available
at:
The Royal Institute of British
Architects has collected a vast
amount of existing knowledge
from architects, other built
environment professionals and
researchers about design for
older people, including people
with dementia. This information
has been compiled on its
website under the heading
Design for an ageing
population, and is freely
available at
Experts have written
introductions for a number of the
key themes for use in practice or
as a starting point to explore the
research.
Books
Eat to cheat dementia: what
you eat helps avoid it or live
better with it
Ngaire Hobbins, Bermingham
Books (2016), ISBN
9780994344038, $29.99
As Australian dietician Ngaire
Hobbins explains in this book,
nearly half of those diagnosed
with dementia have already lost
weight in the year prior to
diagnosis and if weight loss and
poor food intake are not
addressed immediately, quality
of life and independence can
quickly become compromised.
As well as advice on how to
choose food for brain and body
health to help reduce the risk of
dementia, this is also a book for
people living with dementia and
carers. There’s information,
advice and strategies to address
weight loss and poor food intake
and support people to eat and
enjoy food that is enticing and
nourishing, including eating
plans and a resources list.
Hobbins also lectures at the
University of Tasmania’s Wicking
Dementia Research and
Education Centre.
Online
ReThink Respite is designed to
support the large proportion of
carers who currently do not
access respite services; because
they may not know about local
services or may feel guilty about
having their loved one cared for
by someone else. The ReThink
Respite project is currently
offering resources for carers and
people living with dementia in the
Illawarra and Shoalhaven regions
of NSW. These include: the
ReThink Respite website
, which
has a directory of services,
checklists for choosing respite
service providers, a decision
guide, a discussion forum and
information about the different
types of respite available and
respite strategies; free tailored
coaching support; and
presentations and information
sessions in the community.
The Community Café Toolkit is
a free step-by-step guide
designed to help community
groups, organisations or
individuals set up and run a local
café social group for people with
dementia. Community Cafes
provide an informal and social
environment for people with
dementia and their partners and a
means of learning about support
services in their area. Download a
copy at: https://fightdementia.
2 June-11 November – National
Better Practice 2016: The Quality Experience – Beyond the
Expected
Presented by The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency, in Melbourne,
Adelaide, Sydney, Launceston, Perth and Brisbane. Details:
3 June – WA
Diversity of Creativity
Symposium, presented by Society for the Arts in Dementia Care (Australia)
Inc, in Perth. Details:
6 June – SA
The portrait, the mirror and the landscape: working with responsive
behaviours
Workshop, presented by the Dementia Training Study Centres (DTSCs), in
Port Lincoln. Details: .
7 June – WA
Culturally safe assessment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people
Workshop, presented by the DTSCs, in Perth. Details: .
16-17 June – NSW
HammondCare International Dementia Conference 2016
‘Grand Designs: Are We There Yet?’, in Sydney: Details:
21 June – WA
New resources to improve medication management for people with
dementia
Seminar, presented by the DTSCs, in Perth. Details:
4 July-29 July – National
Improving the care of people living with dementia
Workshops, presented by the DTSCs and the Dementia Collaborative
Research Centres (DCRCs). Details:
July – NSW
Recovery Approaches to Dementia (RAD) Education and Support
Groups
Groups for people living with dementia and their support person, to develop
their own recovery self-management tool to support wellness. Hosted by
Centacare Southwest NSW, in Lavington (14 July), Griffith (19 July), Wagga
Wagga (21 July). Details: (02) 6923 3888 or email
3 August – WA
The Creative-Expressive Abilities Assessment (CEAA) Tool
Seminar, in Kalamunda. Presented by Hilary Lee, co-developer of the CEAA
tool. Cost: $795 (includes the complete assessment tool). Details:
Events