Dementia Care

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6 Australian Journal of Dementia Care June/July 2016 Vol 5 No 3
growing international
awareness of the importance of
creating dementia-friendly
communities that support
people with dementia, but very
little work has been done on the
role universities can play in this.
We have undertaken this project
to see if we can demonstrate the
contribution universities can
make. Our goal is to alert UOW
staff and students to the
opportunity to contribute to the
creation of new forms of
infrastructure, treatment, care,
service delivery, design and
communication that will foster
an inclusive community: a
community where the
university is acknowledged as
having a leading role inmeeting
one of the major challenges of
the 21st century”.
Dementia-specific content
To date, DEUS has engaged
with UOWstaff to determine
how andwhere dementia-
specific content may fit within
existing courses, with interested
faculties and schools developing
plans for dementia-related
topics and projects to be
included in a variety of
undergraduate courses. Subjects
include: law, media, social
sciences, public health,
engineering, and psychology.
For these, dementia content will
take the formof guest lectures,
project-based and internship or
placement opportunities,
assessment tasks and tutorial
content. Funding has assisted
staff to develop teaching
resources and content, some of
whichwas incorporatedwithin
subjects fromMay this year.
Examples of howdementia
content will be embedded
within courses (particularly in
non-traditional dementia
disciplines) include:
•Aguest lecture for media and
journalism students, entitled:
Perceptions of dementia within the
media, presented by a person
with dementia (Kate Swaffer,
Chair, CEO and co-founder of
DementiaAlliance
International) followed by a
related tutorial activity, and
potential for final year students
to take part in an internship
with the DementiaAlliance
International, a non-profit group
of people with dementia from
around the worldwho seek to
represent, support, and educate
others living with the disease.
• Content development for a
new elective within the Bachelor
of Laws, whichwill explore the
relationship between the
complex, and at times
contradictory, roles of law in the
lives of people with disability.
Dementia will be addressed
through discussion of specific
topics related to law and
dementia including legal
capacity, elder abuse and legal
regulation of residential aged
care facilities.
• Content development for a
module on Leadership and
Dementia whichwill form the
major component of a second
year subject within the Bachelor
of Social Sciences Dean’s Scholar
program entitled ‘Leadership,
Scholarship and Social Change’,
whereby scholars will be
challenged to reflect on their
leadership potential, portfolio of
scholarly competencies,
leadership and scholarship
learning goals, and their role as
future social scientists in a
changing worldwhere
leadership is required.
• Engineering students will also
take part in dementia-related
project and solution-based
design placements with funding
to establish ‘design studios’ to
improve the knowledge and
skills of future engineers so they
can design appropriately for
people with dementia.
Outcomes for the design
studios also include generating
innovation in the design of
buildings and artefacts to be
used by people with dementia,
as well as raising awareness of
the requirement for design to
reflect the needs of people with
dementia.
Involving people
with dementia
The voice of people with
dementia is represented on the
project by Kate Swaffer, who is
also a member of theWorld
Dementia Council, a person
living with younger onset
dementia and a current UOW
PhD candidate. Kate is
contributing to the development
and inclusion of dementia-
specific content, and facilitating
relationships between people
with dementia, academic
experts, lecturers and students.
“Involving people with
dementia in this project is a
major step forward in reducing
the isolation, stigma and
discrimination, which are still
the salient features of the lived
experience of dementia,” Kate
said. “As a partner in the project,
and now a PhD student at the
University of Wollongong, I
hope this project takes dementia
beyond the medicalisationwe
currently face, to a new level of
biosocial, enabling pathway of
care and support as we engage
and educate students in
dementia generally, and to see
how their own disciplines can
ensure that independence,
autonomy and the human rights
and disability rights of people
with dementia are met.”
Guest lectures
As part of the Dementia
Enabling University Strategy at
UOW, the DTSCwill also
support a series of open guest
lectures featuring dementia
experts from a wide range of
disciplines, and networking
events to promote the
interaction of students and staff
across disciplines.
It is hoped that through the
inclusion of dementia-specific
content inmore undergraduate
disciplines, UOWstudents will
not only demonstrate greater
awareness of the problems faced
by people with dementia, but
will also have the motivation to
consider the challenges faced by
people with dementia from their
unique discipline perspective.
Professor Richard Fleming is
Director of the NSW/ACT Dementia
Training Study Centre, and
Executive Editor of the AJDC; Dr
Lyn Phillipson is an NHMRC-ARC
Dementia Fellow at the Australian
Health Services Research Institute
at the University of Wollongong;
Kate Swaffer is Chair, CEO and co-
founder of Dementia Alliance
International; Kara Cappetta is a
Research Officer at the University of
Wollongong. To follow up on this
article contact Dr Phillipson at:
N E W S
University of Wollongong academics and staff involved in the pilot project to develop Australia’s first
dementia-enabling university include (from left) Dr Tom Goldfinch (Engineering and Information
Sciences), Shawn Burns (Law, Humanities and the Arts), Fallon Forbes (NSW/ACT Dementia Training
Study Centre), DEUS project leader Dr Lyn Phillipson (Social Sciences), Dr Lynnaire Sheridan (Business),
Dr Linda Steele (Law, Humanities and the Arts), Professor Chris Cook and Dr Sasha Nikolic (both from
Engineering and Information Sciences), and Kate Swaffer (inset). Absent are Professor Richard Fleming
and Kara Cappetta