Changing Needs and Changing Service Delivery for Long-Term Care in Hong Kong
Iris Chi, Kalyani K. Mehta, Anna L. Howe in Long-Term Care in the 21st Century: Perspectives from Around the Asia-Pacific Rim, 2013
Due to their historical pattern of development, the subvented homes are classified into different types on the basis of the level of frailty of residents and care provided, and residents may have to move if their level of care changes. Aged care homes provide communal living accommodation for those elderly persons who, though capable of self-care, are psychologically in need of support and supervision in their daily lives. Services include meals and laundry, very limited personal care, and social activities. Care and attention homes provide accommodation with general personal care and limited nursing care for elderly people who suffer from poor health or physical/mental disabilities. The higher cost of the care and attention homes comes from the higher level of services, which include regular medical, nursing, and rehabilitative services, social support, and personal care. The nursing homes in the subvented sector provide an even higher level of skilled nursing care.
The challenges of ageism
V. Minichiello, I. Coulson in Contemporary Issues in Gerontology, 2012
There is little appreciation amongst professional nurses and nursing students of the complexity of aged care and the specialised skills required to be an effective aged care nurse (Chenoweth 2003). Nurses tend to judge the importance of a particular area by the clinical tasks associated with that area. The high technology areas are rated as more important because they are perceived to require higher order psychomotor skills. However, while aged care usually does not involve high technology, it does involve the need for excellent assessment and communication skills and the planning, coordination and prioritising of care. These are the very skills that professional nurses need in all practice settings, but are also the skills that are often the least highly valued, especially by students of nursing. As long as this lack of appreciation persists, aged care nursing will continue to be viewed negatively within the profession.
Development of palliative medicine in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Eduardo Bruera, Irene Higginson, Charles F von Gunten, Tatsuya Morita in Textbook of Palliative Medicine and Supportive Care, 2015
Various initiatives have been undertaken to address the palliative care needs of specific populations [80]. These initiatives acknowledge the Māori model of health: te whare tapa whā (four-sided house), with wairua (spiritual), hinengaro (thoughts and feelings), tinana (physical), and whānau (family and community aspects), as central to culturally appropriate and safe palliative care [15]. In recognition of the palliative care needs of the growing aged population, Hospice NZ has developed and implemented a Fundamentals of Palliative Care education program to be available for all residential aged care facilities over time and free distribution of the Palliative Care Handbook [82]. The current Palliative Care Provision in Aged Residential Care project aims to identify palliative care capacity in this care setting along with the palliative care aged care data gaps [80]. The Guidance for Integrated Paediatric Palliative Care Services in New Zealand aims to improve the integration of palliative care service delivery to children and young people in NZ. A summary document has the key recommendations of the guidance that district health board funders and planners can use as a quick reference guide [83].
Aged care as a bellwether of future physiotherapy
Published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 2020
At first glance, it would seem that the rapidly expanding field of aged care incorporates many aspects of practice that could sustain a profession like physiotherapy into the twenty-first century. Aged care emphasizes the ongoing support for people with complex comorbidities, primarily through physical activity and the maintenance of functioning; it is a governmental priority in many developing and developed countries; and represents a rapidly expanding market, with every evidence that it will replace the kinds of acute, episodic, specialized services that dominated health care in the last century. Much of the health policy defining the future of aged care appears to be sidestepping the orthodox health-care professions though, in favor of new workforce structures that are marginalizing professions like physiotherapy. These workforce structures are increasingly favoring a workforce constituted of low-wage health-care assistants, family support workers, and case managers; new health strategies privileging prevention rather than treatment; and dissolving traditional health-care hierarchies, in favor of competition and interprofessional boundary encroachment. At the same time, rather than fully embracing aged care as a new location for growth and expansion, physiotherapists appear to be reluctant to make the necessary transformations to their ways of thinking and practicing, preferring to trade on their historic social capital, structural alliances with medicine and the state, and practice ideologies.
A single, early aged care experience improves speech-language pathology students’ attitudes towards older people, communication confidence, and career aspirations in aged care
Published in International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2021
Sarah J. Wallace, Akhila Mathew, Allison Mandrusiak, Anna Hatton
By 2057 it is estimated that up to 22% of Australia’s population will be aged 65 years or older (Australian Institute of Health & Welfare, 2018). The ageing process and increased prevalence of disease amongst older people, may result in changes to physical, cognitive, communicative, and social functioning (Worrall & Hickson, 2003). While some of these changes may be anticipated and managed, others require ongoing support. In Australia, aged care is defined as the network of all support provided to people aged 65 and over (or earlier based on ethnic and/or cultural background) (Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality & Safety, 2019). Aged care may be informal, provided by unpaid carers; or formal, provided or subsidised by government or other organisations (Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality & Safety, 2019). Currently, over one million Australians receive aged care services and this number is expected to reach 3.5 million by 2050 (Productivity Commission, 2011). An ageing population is anticipated to fuel exponential growth in the number of people with disability, leading to increased demand for health care services such as speech-language pathology (Abbey et al., 2006; AIHW, 2017; Productivity Commission, 2011).
Young people in aged care: trends in the use of aged care services by younger Australians, 2008–2016
Published in Disability and Rehabilitation, 2021
Maria C. Inacio, Jyoti Khadka, Catherine Lang, Stephanie Harrison, Maria Crotty, Craig Whitehead, Steve Wesselingh
Briefly, aged care services in Australia are subsidized by the Australian Commonwealth Government and individuals contribute to the costs of services using means tested care fees. An aged care eligibility assessment required before services are subsidized. This assessment is conducted by a team of trained assessors (i.e., Aged Care Assessment Team) and used to determine an individual’s care needs and makes recommendations for specific type of support needed and the level of aged care program an individual is approved for [2]. The aged care programs include: Home Care Packages, which support people to remain living at home and within their communities; residential care, which is institutionalized permanent or respite services; and transition care, which is a short-term restorative care to facilitate recovery after a hospitalization. Most younger people have simple pathways to permanent care services with more than two thirds reported to have used other aged care services in 2009–2010 to 2013–2014 prior to entry into permanent care [4].
Related Knowledge Centers
- Assisted Living
- Life Expectancy
- Old Age
- Adult Daycare Center
- Long-Term Care
- Nursing Home
- Residential Care
- Hospice
- Home Care
- Health Care