Residents interviewing aged care staff – are we there yet?

As people get older, their ability to use their senses – sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch – can decrease. One particularly frustrating sense to lose is a person’s hearing. It can be difficult to notice that a person is losing their hearing as it can go quite slowly and gradually. People around them –... Read More

The Governor-General was handed the report of the aged care royal commission on Friday. It will be made public in the coming week. Overlaying its considerations has been Australia’s 909 deaths from COVID-19, more than two-thirds of them (685) people in aged care facilities. It has to be recognised that COVID accounts for an extremely small share of deaths in Australia, and even deaths of senior citizens. 127,082 Australians aged 70 and over died in 2019. To date 851 in that age group have died of COVID. Some good might come from these sad deaths if they prompted us to think about where we are likely to die. Read More

Dying to Know Day, on August 8th, is an annual day dedicated to bringing to life conversations and community actions around death, dying and bereavement. Dying to Know Day is a social movement aimed at destigmatizing the discussion of dying. Sharon Billings, an Advance Care Planning Clinician with Alfred Health, says 50 percent of us will... Read More