Anyone who has lived through an ailing parent's final months will tell you it can be a harrowing experience. For Karen, nothing could have prepared her for the last 12 months of her mother’s life. Not even a background in law could help her adequately navigate ‘the system’ of acute care, rehabilitation, a traumatic stay in a mental health ward and, ultimately, aged care. Helping Joan maintain her independence Back in 2010, Karen’s mum Joan was still living well and independently. In her late...

  Nearly two in three aged care providers in rural and remote areas - 65 per cent - are losing money, according to a new report by independent aged care accountants StewartBrown. The report also noted that rural and remote aged care facilities have fewer residents than their city counterparts, but their residents have higher care needs. Rural and remote facilities also have difficulty attracting staff, have lower accommodation prices and higher costs, such as for food and maintenance. Despite...

This week, twelve years ago, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke to all Australians acknowledging Australia’s wrongdoing which resulted in the suffering of the Stolen Generations. My wife and I kept our daughters home that day from school to watch the apology. It was a significant day, not just for our people, but all Australians. Despite it taking decades for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to receive a formal apology from the Australian government the date holds poignant significance...

An elderly woman was robbed and allegedly kidnapped by a knife-wielding intruder that burst into her home in south-west Sydney. Maria, 74, answered the door of her Kemps Creek home to a man who claimed that he wanted to make a phone call before things turned violent. Maria described the beginning of the terrifying incident in an interview with 9News. “He knocked on the door and said that he wanted to make a phone call and then he lost it...

Anyone who has lived through an ailing parent's final months will tell you it can be a harrowing experience. For Karen, nothing could have prepared her for the last 12 months of her mother’s life. Not even a background in law could help her adequately navigate ‘the system’ of acute care, rehabilitation, a traumatic stay in a mental health ward and, ultimately, aged care. Helping Joan maintain her independence Back in 2010, Karen’s mum Joan was still living well and independently. In her late...

Having a chat with your taxi driver is nowhere near as common as it used to be, but taking the time to share a conversation with a stranger proved to be extremely beneficial for one elderly woman in the US state of California.  The 92-year-old woman was in the middle of a taxi ride from her home in Roseville, California, to a local bank, when she told her taxi driver that she planned to take out $25,000 to...

Three years ago I walked into a memory support facility in Gerringong NSW. I had recently moved to the area with my partner from Tasmania and had graduated with a degree in dementia from the University of Tasmania the year before. So I was eager to specialise in an area I had become passionate about over the past three years.  From the moment I stepped into the door, I was greeted by smiling faces, from the manager to staff...

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29HiTmi-4mc[/embed] This year, International Nurses Day coincided with Mother's Day. Nicky Hondros, a palliative care nurse shared her and her mum's heartfelt story and provided a little glimpse into what it's like caring for someone living with dementia....

  Danish photographer, Sophie Mathiassen, has been awarded the 2019 Bob and Diane Fund award for her profoundly moving body of work that captures her grandparents’ journey through dementia.  ‘But greatest is love’ is the story of Ms Mathiassen’s grandparents, from the time her grandfather was diagnosed with dementia and Parkinson’s disease, to how his wife stepped up to be his carer, and how she coped with slowly losing her life partner until, eventually, he passed away.  The...

When Jim Flemming was just a teenager, he told his mother and father that he wanted to be a radio announcer.  At the age of 16, Jim stumbled upon an advertisement in the paper from a gentleman that was offering training at a broadcast school and within five minutes of his first lesson both Jim and his trainer realised that he made the right decision. “You know Jim, you are very lucky,” the trainer said, “you were born...

More than 110,000 calls to My Aged Care went unanswered in three years, according to information provided through Senate Estimates. Last year alone, nearly 43,000 weren’t answered, an average of 118 calls every day.  Satisfaction with the nation’s entry point to the aged care system was also below par. The satisfaction rate for 2018-19 was 57 per cent, below the government’s satisfaction KPI of 65 per cent. System is “broken” and in “crisis” A statement from Shadow...

When the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s Interim Report was released last October, Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck’s claim that he was “shocked” by the report was troubling, to say the least. The Interim Report, titled Neglect, was both candid and scathing in its assessment of the Australian aged care sector, but all of the issues raised within the report's findings have been well documented over the years and are common knowledge to industry insiders. Research from...