Harmony in the Bush: A personalised care model for people with dementia

There are creative ways to improve the quality of life, and decrease the stress, carer burden and staff workloads in residential care facilities. Harmony in the Bush is an innovative research study aims to co-design an effective model of care for dementia in residential facilities. Approximately 30% of Australians live in rural communities. Dementia is a major concern for many rural communities where there are ageing populations with poor access to health services. Many people rely on aged care facilities as their relatives experience progressive decline, particularly when they experience behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia such as agitation and wandering. These symptoms are complex, stressful and costly aspects of care. Institutionalisation and antipsychotic medications have limited efficacy but are widely used in residential aged care. The study is funded by the Australian Government Dementia and Aged Care Services grant, and is a two-year, longitudinal, quasi-experimental design involving behaviour measurements, interviews, and focus groups in five different kinds of residential facilities to evaluate the model’s effectiveness in various rural health contexts. They include small and large, private, public, not for profit, people from multicultural backgrounds and an Aboriginal specific facility. Our ‘Ageing Well in Harmony’ is a new model of care incorporating personalised care, non-pharmacological interventions and music for people with dementia (PWD). This presentation will include an overview of the study design and preliminary findings. This personalised model of care will have long-term positive outcomes for rural communities especially beneficial for PWD, carers, aged care staff and their workplaces.