CDPC Submission to Aged Care Royal Commission
The Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre provided a submission to the current Royal Commission on Aged Care and Quality Safety earlier this year. Responding to the terms of reference of the Commission, the submission covers research evidence, resources and tools to deliver improved care for people with dementia.
The CPDC submission offers the following:1
- Direction for aged care providers on how to develop policies upholding the right of people with dementia to be supported to make decisions that affect their lives
- Clinical Practice Guidelines and Principles of Care for people with dementia and an accompanying consumer guide so that consumers, clinicians and aged care planners and providers can expect, recognise and provide good dementia care
- Evidence that a home-like model of residential aged care provides a better quality of life, better meets the needs and preferences of residents and their families and is associated with fewer use of psychotropic medicines
- A validated consumer rated quality of care instrument to evaluate the quality of care in residential aged care facilities from a consumer perspective
- Examples of models of care that maintain a person’s functioning to enable a person to remain at home for longer as well as effective carer support models
- Recommendations for a national strategic action plan to reduce polypharmacy
- Evidence for strategies to reduce the use of chemical restraint
- A tool to ease the burden of drug administration in residential care and clinical decision software to achieve person-centred medication management
- Suggestions for increasing prescribing of Vitamin D supplements in aged care to reduce health care costs related to falls and the confirmation of the potential of telemedicine to improve the timeliness and efficiency of medication reviews
- Evidence of benefits for residents and students of an inter-professional education program and the identification of staff factors that influence quality of life.
1The full submission can be found on the CDPC website at CDPC Aged Care Royal Commission Submission.
