Specialist Dementia Care Program Unit celebrates milestone at Anglicare SQ
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The Specialist Dementia Care Program Unit at St Martin’s Aged Care Home on Brisbane’s northside recently celebrated a year of service caring for people living with dementia
The Specialist Dementia Care Program Unit at St Martin’s Aged Care Home on Brisbane’s northside recently celebrated a year of service caring for people living with dementia.
The unit is one of only three in Queensland and was officially opened in July, 2020.
Its ground-breaking new framework in care provides a dedicated dementia-friendly environment for people living with dementia who are exhibiting severe behaviours.
Since opening, the program has had 11 admissions and five successful discharges.
St Martin’s Facility Manager Mardi Erasmus said the program has been a huge success for those living with dementia.
“The Specialist Dementia Care program was a Commonwealth Government initiative as part of a process to improve options for people living with dementia,” she said.
“It’s a dementia focused and dementia friendly environment, and it’s done by a specialist health care team.
“The clinical team was handpicked and all of them have gone through a vigorous process of training, and they’ve all just taken it on board. They are resident focused which means they do things out of the ordinary. They do it exactly the way the residents need it to be done, which is not always an easy thing for a nurse to do and part of the leadership was around giving feedback every time something happened and make it a learning experience.”
St Martin’s Specialised Care Coordinator Priyanka Titus said it feels great to be able to make a positive difference to residents living with dementia.
“It does feel really good that we can make a positive impact on residents living with dementia and the impacts on their families to see the relief and reassurance,” she said.
“It gives us the opportunity to, as part of Anglicare Southern Queensland, offer another level of services for residents living with dementia and severe behaviour response, and also the ground-breaking work in developing new processes in the new Dementia Framework.”
Congratulations to the team for their outstanding achievements in making the program the success it is!
For more information, please visit the St Martin’s Residential Aged Care Home webpage.
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