Blog

Informing people with vastly different backgrounds, literacy levels and capacity, as well as roles is a challenge. This is why in the 2017-2020 project period, CareSearch and palliAGED began the Engagement Project working with specific groups (allied health, aged care and patients, carers, and families) to learn more about how they find and use health care information and what information about end of life and palliative care they need. Dr Katrina Erny-Albrecht, Senior Research Fellow for CareSearch discusses some key findings from the project and the central importance of context.

Preparing and planning for quality symptom management and palliative care should be a priority in the management of COVID-19 in residential aged care facilities. Kim Offner, Project Officer at ELDAC, discusses the lessons learnt and the practical recommendations from the Palliative Care and COVID-19 webinars which the project recently hosted.

COVID-19 presents an unprecedented challenge for patients, carers, and health professionals, especially for those providing home-based palliative care to patients. Professor Liz Reymond Director at Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative and Deputy Director at Metro South Palliative Care Service discusses the new caring@home packages for carers to support them to help manage symptoms in home-based palliative care patients and limit the risk of community COVID-19 transmission. 

COVID-19 is changing how we make decisions, plan for an unknown future, and respond to global changes beyond our control. Judith Lesson AM shares her views on the pandemic, and why it is important for all of us in the community to receive reliable and accurate information to make informed decisions.

Everyone should consider an advance care plan (ACP), however, ACP is a concept based on Western principles of self-determination, patient autonomy, informed consent and decision-making. These values are not universally accepted and compete with other beliefs for many older Australians. Dr Georgia Rowley from ELDAC discusses Australia’s diverse population and how diversity considerations should be made when engaging in ACP initiatives.