Australia has an ageing population with the proportion of older people aged 65 more than tripling over the last fifty years. We are working to enable a socially and economically sustainable aged care sector, and to find solutions to the complex problems that continue to characterise the sector. 

Over 80% of deaths in Australia are of people aged 65 and over, with dementia now the second leading cause of death. The need for interactions with aged care services, primary care, and acute services for older people increases as they approach end-of-life.

Research on palliative and end-of-life care is critical to understanding the holistic needs of older people with dementia and other life-limiting illnesses, supporting family caregivers, addressing workforce challenges, and understanding care needs across care settings.

We have three broad programs of research focused on aged care:

  • Improving palliative care for older people across care settings
  • Workforce planning, education and support
  • Family caregivers
Research in action: Aged care, ageing and dementia

Research in action: Aged care, ageing and dementia

Research in action: Aged care, ageing and dementia transcript

Prof. Angela Dawson: Welcome to the Faculty of Health, here at the University of Technology, Sydney. We are working to enable a socially and economically sustainable aged-care sector and to find solutions to the complex problems that continue to characterise the sector.

Annie Hepworth: I'm really focused on looking at how we can improve the quality of life for older people in hospital through the prevention of delirium. And the experience for someone that has a delirium is real. Their distress is really evident and they're really quite frightened. I'm looking at it from the nurse at the bedside, seeing patients at risk and what can they do to actually prevent this significant illness occurring for their patients.

Dr. Lucinda Morris: As the global population ages, we know that many older adults in their seventies, eighties and nineties and even older, will be diagnosed with cancer. As oncologists, we know that we can and should be doing better for older adults, and often there's a degree of ageism that comes into the way that we treat older people and we make decisions based on their physiological age, not their chronological age. And that has translated into much poorer outcomes, as I say, for older people across the entire spectrum of cancer care, from quality of life to experience of treatment, and to long-term survival. So the focus of my PhD research is to ensure that the next generation of radiation oncologists receive education and training about managing older adults so that they can provide them with the best quality care possible.

Dr Tom McClean: Our involvement in the Deakin Hub has been incredibly important for us in how we introduce new technology into our aged care at the frontline. It's a remarkably difficult problem to solve in practise, even though it seems really simple in theory. And this research project has helped us to work through how we do that.

Prof. Deborah Parker: The Hub really came about with the acknowledgement of the importance of digital technologies in aged care. So every step of the way, it is a co-designed partnership with the staff at Uniting. We're talking to residents and clients, we're really trying to get that interface so that it's not a university directing the traffic as such. It's actually, "What do we want to do together to get the best outcomes for the residents and the clients in Uniting?"

Dr Tom McClean: It really has been a partnership, not just between Uniting and UTS, but between the research and the practise teams at Uniting and our frontline staff.

Prof. Deborah Parker: What we really want to get the message across is the importance of long-term established relationships between university partners and industry, and the benefits for everybody involved in that.

Annie Hepworth: The impact of my research really is being able to give nurses the skills and the confidence to be able to know that they have made a difference for an older person by preventing a significant illness. I really want to be able to empower them and be able to give them confidence that what they're doing is actually making a difference.

Dr. Lucinda Morris: My hope from this research is that one day soon, if you are an older adult with cancer and you see a radiation oncologist anywhere in the world, that radiation oncologist is highly trained in assessing you as a unique individual. They know how to work collaboratively with geriatric oncologists and allied health staff to prepare you before, during and after treatment. And I think if this can happen, we know that the outcomes for older adults with cancer will vastly improve.

 

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