News

In recognition of Advance Care Planning week (18-24 March), our team asked Craig Sinclair and Rebecca Walton, researchers currently looking at the effectiveness of advance care planning, to tell us about this work and its implications for aged care.

Assessing and documenting the palliative care needs and preferences of people with life-limiting illness is important yet can be challenging if based on complex, lengthy assessment tools. This blog describes a more flexible approach that uses an evidence-based aide-memoire – POMSNAME. This tool has already demonstrated improvements in testing with community health nurses.

Dementia is a life-limiting condition, yet the palliative care needs of people with dementia often go unrecognised and unassessed. Wendy Hall explains the role of the Dementia Doula, a model of care that ensures people with dementia and their families receive high-quality, responsive, and person-centred palliative care in community and aged care settings.   

Dr Sara Karacsony describes the Namaste Care program—a person-centred approach to bringing calm, comfort and connection to people living with advanced dementia.

People living with dementia are less likely to receive palliative care than those with other diagnoses. Dr Elissa Campbell argues traditional models of palliative care designed for people with cancer do not meet the needs of people with dementia. This lead Dr Campbell to undertake a Churchill Fellowship to identify successful models of palliative care for people with dementia, proposing recommendations to implement these in Australia.