A NEW website provides evidence-based medical and practical information about the provision of palliative care to older people.
Aimed at helping health professionals, aged care staff, family and friends, the site features new medications, medical practise, models of care, advice on cultural and other considerations, symptoms and treatment decisions.
For families, there is information on end-of-life care, including recognising the changes in a patient's health; advance care planning; communication; finances; and grief and loss.
There is a section to find appropriate services, and a link to helpful resources, as well as videos of health professionals.
Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt said an ageing population meant more people would die due to chronic progressive diseases such as dementia, thus increasing the need for an end-of-life system that meets the needs and expectations of individuals, their families and the clinicians who look after them.
"For most people entering a residential aged care facility, it will be their last home, making end-of-life care a very important part of planning their care needs," Mr Wyatt said.
"Death is an increasingly institutionalised and medicalised experience."
Did you know...
- More than 62 per cent of Australians are clients of an aged care program when they die.
- 70 per cent of people prefer to die at home.
- Today, only about 14 per cent of people die at home - 54 per cent die in hospitals and 32 per cent in residential care.
The site is funded by the federal government and managed by Flinders University through the CareSearch website.
