Creating dementia friendly communities: How to build CDC principles into dementia care

Improving outcomes for people living with dementia is a key priority across Australia for aged care providers, healthcare and government.

With over 342,000 people currently living with dementia in Australia, service providers must take an innovative and integrated approach to caring for people living with dementia to ensure a high quality of life is maintained.

The recent shift toward person centred care has been applauded across the HACC space, with organisations now looking at how to build CDC principles into dementia care.

As Michele Lewis, Chief Executive at mecwacare clarifies:

“Building the principles of CDC into dementia care will promote choice and decision making. This is particularly important around the future care needs of people with dementia. However once a person with dementia no longer has the capacity to make their own decisions, this choice and decision making will flow to the next of Kin. It is important that all significant involved people are supported through this process. This is in line with current consumer demand, knowledge and access to information and supported by government policy initiatives”

Partnering with the consumer’s personal support network also a strong focus for Therese Adami, Chief Operating Officer at KinCare, who says:

“It is very important that CDC principles be applied to all consumers. With dementia, it must be inclusive of carer and/or nominated decision maker. Is even more important for people with dementia to ensure their needs and preferences are being met”

Lenore de la Perrelle, Senior Manager ACH Group Dementia Learning and Development Unit at ACH Group agrees:

“The process of planning with the person with dementia and their family members in the CDC process requires excellent communication skills and a real understanding of the person and their needs and interests. It needs good knowledge of what supports quality of life and enables relationship centred care, a three way process that is open.  If we can become good at engaging people with dementia in planning their care we will excel in extending that to all people. The hope is that we can improve quality of life for the most vulnerable.”

Michele Lewis, Therese Adami and Lenore de la Perrelle will be speaking at the upcoming Dementia Strategy Summit, brought to you by Akolade in conjunction with Alzheimer's Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

Having unfulfilled her childhood dream of becoming an international spy, Ellise is loving her position as Conference Production Manager at Akolade. Her favourite thing about the role is that it allows her to stay abreast of the latest news across a variety of industries while constantly learning from experts in their field.