Topic guides: Tips for professionals: Content

Environment

Make the environment comfortable for me

The physical environments of hospitals and other care settings can be highly distracting and confusing to people living with dementia and can cause them distress.

How to design dementia- friendly care environments by Dementia Australia
The designed environment can have a major impact on a person living with
dementia. This Help Sheet will outline the key principles to enable you to make simple changes at home or in a care facility to help make the best of everyday life.
Creating a dementia-friendly home by Dementia Australia
The physical environment can have a major impact on a person living with dementia. This Help Sheet provides information for families and carers on how to create a dementia-friendly environment that maximises the wellbeing of people living with dementia at home and increases their participation in activities.

The Dementia-Friendly Home app
The Dementia-Friendly Home app is designed by Dementia Australia to help individuals, carers, family members adapt or design a home for a person living with dementia. You are placed in a virtual home where you can discover how to make a home more suitable for people living with dementia. You can explore each room at your own pace and interact with objects which allow you to immediately discover the impact a simple modification may have to improving quality of home life.

Environmental Design Resources by DTA
Publication Date: 2017
This suite of 6 resources and 1 app presents the principles and assessments of good environmental design.
The Room Outside by Annie Pollock; Colm Cunningham
Publication Date: 2018
Being outside adds to everyone's quality of life but too often this simple joy of living is beyond the reach of older people and people with dementia. The room outside is easy to read, informative and well-researched making it the perfect resource for those seeking to build, design or manage better outdoor spaces, or those wanting to access and advocate for them.

Dementia Enabling Environments / Alzheimer’s Western Australia
The Dementia Enabling Environment Virtual Information Centre provides practical tips, guides and resources to help make the places where we live more dementia enabling.
It can help you develop an enabling environment for a person living with dementia, making a significant difference to their independence, quality of life and wellbeing.

Independence

Support my independence

Most people living with dementia will benefit from being given space to do things by themselves and to spend time with their visitors alone. By understanding the individual’s strengths and abilities, you will be able to offer support when required.

Tools and aids to help at home
Supportive aids can be used to assist people living with dementia by supporting their independence, reducing the risk of dangerous situations occurring, helping them maintain a sense of well-being and staying at home longer.
Supported decision-making
Supported decision-making is a practice that enables people to make decisions about their own life and enables the person to be involved in decisions that affect their care. The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary group of investigators, including consumer and aged care representatives, clinicians and researchers with backgrounds in psychology, medicine, law and aged care.

Connection

Listen to and connect with me

It can often be difficult for people living with dementia to communicate in hospital or care settings, especially when healthcare professionals lack a proper understanding of dementia and the listening skills required. If a person with dementia feels like they are not being properly listened to, this can cause them distress and may result in their care not meeting their specific needs.

Sharing Sensory Stories and Conversations with People with Dementia by JoAnna Grace
Publication Date: 2018
Sensory Stories contain just a few lines of text, and are brought to life through a selection of meaningful sensory experiences. They have been shown to be highly effective in helping care for people with dementia, and can enable them to engage with their memories, life history and more, in a way that would otherwise not be possible. Despite these benefits, there is very little guidance on how to incorporate this approach in everyday care. This book looks at how sensory engagement can help someone with dementia feel safe and secure, minimise their anxieties, support their cognitive abilities, as well as other benefits.
What I wish people knew about dementia by Wendy Mitchell
Publication Date: 2022
When Wendy Mitchell was diagnosed with young-onset dementia at the age of fifty-eight, her brain was overwhelmed with images of the last stages of the disease - those familiar tropes, shortcuts and clichés that we are fed by the media, or even our own health professionals. But her diagnosis far from represented the end of her life. Instead, it was the start of a very different one. Wise, practical and life affirming, What I Wish People Knew About Dementia combines anecdotes, research and Wendy Mitchell's own brilliant wit and wisdom to tell readers exactly what she wishes they knew about dementia.

Communication

Communicate clearly with me

It’s important for healthcare professionals to remember that people living with dementia have unique requirements when it comes to communication. Dementia makes it harder for people to concentrate and they may be unable to hold multiple ideas in their minds during conversation. Unfortunately, the distractions and stresses that often occur with hospital admissions or group care settings can make communication more difficult.

Why Dementia Makes Communication Difficult by Alison Wray
Publication Date: 2021
Dementia brings many challenges, not least its ability to disrupt effective communication. The quality of communication plays a major role in how well people living with a dementia manage. When communication doesn't work well, the complications of dementia are compounded. Rather than only offering tips on what to say and how to say it, this book explores the underlying motivations of communication, so we can better understand why we say what we do, why we say it the way we do, what can go wrong, and how attempts to fix things can go awry.
A Creative Toolkit for Communication in Dementia Care by Karrie Marshall
How can carers and relatives support a person's identity, relationships and emotional wellbeing through changes that occur in the later stages of dementia? Marshall provides a toolkit of tried and tested creative activities to support communication and relationships. Activities are vast and varied, with outdoor activities such as bird-watching and star-gazing aimed at supporting physical health, artistic activities such as collage creation to support identity, and musical activities such as sounds and voice warm-ups to support self-expression..

Orientation

Help me orientate myself

A few simple reminders can be an effective way of keeping people living with dementia oriented

Tools and aids to help at home
Supportive aids can be used to assist people living with dementia by supporting their independence, reducing the risk of dangerous situations occurring, helping them maintain a sense of well-being and staying at home longer.

Assistive Technology
Often simple aids or gadgets can assist someone with memory loss to manage better at home. Visit the Dementia Australia website for ideas

Using Technology in Dementia Care by Arlene Astell (Editor)
Publication Date: 2019
Many new pieces of technology can be beneficial to individuals living with dementia, including both hardware and software. This straightforward guide summarises the current research on this growing topic, and gives practical advice on how available technology can be used to improve the everyday lives of people with dementia.

Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing
Visual picture based printable communication cards available in 37 languages. The Communication Cards depict a wide range of daily activities and situations and can be used to prompt discussion, assist with directions and clarify a person’s needs.
Download the cards

Staff development

Ensure your staff have the skills and knowledge to support me

To make sure you and your team are best equipped to care for people living with dementia, it’s important you commit to education and training.

Centre for Dementia Learning
Dementia Australia’s Centre for Dementia Learning offers a wide range of courses and professional development programs for professionals working with and supporting people living with dementia.

Discrimination and dementia – enough is enough by Dementia Australia
Dementia Action Week Report 2021
For all the increased recognition of human rights over the past decades and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities coming into force, people living with dementia still report experiencing discrimination and not feeling fully included within society. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affirms that all persons with all types of disabilities (including people living with dementia) must enjoy the same rights as everyone else, including rights to autonomy in decision-making, independent living, community inclusion, and liberty. The challenge, however, is to shift attitudes, and design and deliver services, businesses and infrastructure that are flexible, innovative, accessible, appropriate and culturally safe to ensure people with dementia, their families and carers are well supported and included within the Australian community.
Developing Excellent Care for People Living with Dementia in Care Homes by Caroline Baker; Pete Calveley
Publication Date: 2014
The award-winning PEARL (Positively Enriching and enhancing Residents' Lives) programme was developed to enable care homes to move from providing good fundamental care to excellent person-centred dementia care. Trialled extensively by one of the UK's largest care providers, it has been proven to dramatically increase the quality of life of people with dementia living in care homes, significantly reducing the use of antipsychotics and the incidence of stress-related behaviours.
Dementia Beyond Disease by G. Allen Power
Publication Date: 2016
Dr. G. Allen Power demonstrates how to achieve sustainable success in dementia care by changing the caregiving lens to focus on well-being and the ways in which it can be enhanced in people living with dementia. This approach challenges widely accepted dementia care practices and provides a compelling new framework to guide care decisions. Through in-depth examinations of seven domains of well-being, readers discover how current care practices erode them, and the transformative approaches that can restore them.
Evidence-Based Practice in Dementia for Nurses and Nursing Students by Karen Harrison [et al]
Publication Date: 2019
This book covers various principles that underpin dementia care, including person-centred care, behaviours that challenge, risk management, and understanding relationships affected by dementia. It assesses dementia care across a range of care settings, such as primary care, care homes, domiciliary care, acute hospital, and hospice services.
Person-Centred Dementia Care by Dawn Brooker; Isabelle Latham
Publication Date: 2015
Dawn Brooker and Isabelle Latham explain the evolution of the key principles of person-centred care that comprise the VIPS model. They describe how it has been applied in diverse service settings, and show how to put the model into practice.

Engagement

Keep me engaged

To enable people living with dementia to live as full and active lives as possible, it’s important they stay socially, physically, and mentally engaged.

Activities for people with dementia by Dementia Australia
Content about planning and providing appropriate activities for people with dementia. Enjoyment doesn’t require memory. Each day there are many things that provide us with purpose and pleasure. For a person with dementia, the need for a good quality of life is not diminished. Abilities can vary greatly depending on a person’s age or their stage of dementia, but keeping involved and active is extremely important.
Live and Laugh with Dementia by Lee-Fay Low
Publication Date: 2018
This book is all about how to make life with dementia as positive as possible - to maximise quality of life for all concerned. Just as we need to exercise our body's muscles to keep them strong, flexible and working well, so too do we need to exercise our mental muscles (our brain) to strengthen and maintain our neural capabilities. By tailoring activities to suit the needs and abilities of people living with dementia, we can help: maintain relationships with others; maintain self-identity; enhance mental function by providing physical and mental stimulation; stave off boredom; and, experience happiness and pleasure.
Creating Moments of Joy along the Alzheimer's Journey by Jolene Brackey
When people have short-term memory loss, their lives are made up of moments. We are not able to create perfectly wonderful days for people with dementia or Alzheimer's, but we can create perfectly wonderful moments, moments that put a smile on their faces and a twinkle in their eyes.
The Montessori Method for Connecting to People with Dementia by Tom Brenner; Karen Brenner
Publication Date: 2019
Drawing on 20 years of experience, Tom and Karen Brenner explain the philosophy of the Montessori method, provide clearly-written steps to follow when applying it, and share a wealth of case studies and stories from their personal work using this method with people with dementia. This includes reading circles, art programmes, drum circles, poetry, and video diaries. Supported by research of the importance of creativity and the arts in dementia care, it is made clear throughout how every aspect of the Montessori method can help those with dementia to rediscover the world around them, maximising the opportunities they have to reconnect with their peers, family, friends, and support staff.
Yoga for Dementia by Tania Plahay
Publication Date: 2018
Proven to enhance wellbeing, posture, breathing and sleep, and reduce anxiety and agitation, this programme shows how yoga can be adapted to benefit people living with dementia.

A better visit - a free app
This app features a range of two-player games such as Tic Tac Tango, Marble Maze and Gone Fishing, designed to enhance communication and facilitate positive social interactions between people with dementia, their carers and families.