Our Jul-Aug 2022 updates include:
A new Topic ”Principles of managing daily challenges and changes” was added to provide a simple to use guide on how to manage changed behaviours and challenges relating to daily activities, such as investigating unmet needs, leveraging a dementia-friendly environment and communications to help, and more
Two new Topics “Depression and dementia” and “Anxiety and dementia” have been added to help everyone manage these two very common conditions
A new Topic “Agitation and dementia” was added to help everyone to manage this common challenge
Almost one hundred content updates including new resources and new Sections, such as Disability Advocacy Finder, the NDIS reassessment process and associated forms, elderly abuse hotline phone number updates, and more.
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Content updates
New Topic “Principles of managing daily challenge and changes”
One of the most challenging things associated with living with dementia is how the person and carers manage changed behaviours, or daily challenges. Many professionals and careers are not sure what to do because it can be confronting and overwhelming.
Because everyone’s situation is different, there is no “silver bullet” but there are common principles we can adopt to help.
So we have created a Topic to help carers and professionals to do just that, including:
Ensuring safety
Preventing changes from escalating
Investigating unmet needs
Leveraging a dementia-friendly environment and communications to help
and more.
You can find this Topic in the "More Topics" tab (CARER app) or "All info" tab (the PRO app), or search for it with keywords such as “principles of changed behaviours”, ”principles of challenges”, etc.
Note: specific scenarios will continue to have their own Topics such as repetition, wandering, delusion, disinhibited behaviours, etc. All individual changed behaviour Topics will refer back to the new “Principles of managing daily challenges and changes” Topic.
New Topic “Depression and dementia" and "Anxiety and dementia"
Both depression and anxiety are very common in our society. It is also common in people living with dementia. When left undiagnosed or untreated, it can lead to significantly worse quality of life for people living with dementia and their carers.
They can also be the cause of many changes to behaviours and challenges, such as apathy, aggression, agitation, repetitive behaviours and more.
You can find this Topic in the "More Topics" tab (CARER app) or "All info" tab (the PRO app), or search for it with keywords such as “depression”, ”anxiety”, etc.
New Topic “Agitation and dementia”
Agitation is very common in people with dementia. When agitation is excessive or not managed, it can cause significantly poorer quality of life. There are ways to manage it which are outlined in the new Topic “Agitation and dementia”
You can find this Topic in the "More Topics" tab (CARER app) or "All info" tab (the PRO app), or search for it with keywords such as “agitation” etc.
Other updates
In addition to the above, we have made almost one hundred content updates, notably:
new resources on Disability Advocacy Finder, PRO tutorial resources on care assessment and care planning
updates to the NDIS reassessment process and associated forms, elderly abuse hotline phone number update, and more.
Note: minor updates are not documented here, such as some wording changes, URL changes, reference updates etc.
Featured Tip
This month’s featured Tip is from Jim from VIC, who is trying to help his wife with helping her to accept help and her diagnosis:
My wife refuses to accept her dementia diagnosis so she also refuses help from others. We have a care worker coming to help her with washing but she was hesitating to accept the help. Then I introduced the carer as a ‘friend’ who is here to help. My wife used to be fiercely independent and proud, and is not used to sharing her private business with strangers but since we have introduced the professional carer as a ‘friend’, she has been more willing to accept her.
This is a good reminder how important it is for us to understand why people behave in certain ways. By playing a bit of “detective” work in understanding Jim’s wife’s personal (P in PECT) need for privacy, Jim was able to address this by introducing the care worker as a friend.
If you are having trouble identifying unmet needs, please review or learn more in our dedicated Topic “Understanding unmet needs and daily challenges” and the PECT model.
This Tip can be found under the Section “Accepting help” under the Topic “Accepting dementia and the changes”.
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