Exercise and performing everyday activities promotes independence and wellbeing
Recommendation 68 from our Clinical Guidelines Recommendations states that exercise is beneficial for people with dementia. This research shows that exercise and continuing to perform daily activities, with modification where needed, is beneficial for people with dementia who are living at home with carers and also those in residential aged care.
Exercise and performing everyday activities enables people to retain their functional ability, helps reduce falls and enables people at home with carers to stay independent for longer and those in residential care to maintain independence for longer and improve mood and wellbeing.
Physical activity can also improve and maintain cognitive functioning as well as physical functional abilities to enable more independence. And use of technology through socialisation robots can also benefit engagement and interaction of people in residential care with limited functional ability.
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COPE program
The Care of Older Persons in their Environment (COPE) program is a structured occupational therapy and nursing intervention for people with dementia and their caregivers living at home that is designed to assist people with dementia and their carers to independently manage everyday activities.
Reablement guidelines
Reablement is a term that refers to maintaining a person’s functional ability. For people with dementia a good level of functional ability is a key to maintaining independence and quality of life as the disease progresses.
Falls prevention
This project aimed to develop strategies that reduce falls in older people with cognitive decline and dementia by examining the relationship between falls and cognition, physical function, postural control and gait, and trialling novel fall and disability prevention strategies e.g. exercise delivered using an iPad app.
Aged care exercise program
This project evaluated the effectiveness of an exercise prescription program that offers an individually targeted exercise program for residents of aged care facilities who have significant dementia and other chronic health conditions or disabilities.
Socialisation robots
This project evaluated the effects on aged care residents of the trial use of a socialisation robot in an aged care facility.
Our dementia research
The CDPC focuses on developing evidence-based guidelines and tools to implement best practice dementia care in the clinical, care and community environments on these themes: