Dementia 6 - Legal perspective on dementia care

This is module 6 of a nine-part series looking at dementia. In this module, we look at the legislation that underpins aged care in Australia, and some specific issues such as dignity of risk, neglect and abuse, compulsory reporting requirements, missing persons, and restraint.

This course has been mapped to the Aged Care Quality Standards 1, 4, 5 and 7.

In this course the following areas will be covered:

• balancing duty of care and dignity of risk
• neglect, abuse, and compulsory reporting
• strategies to reduce wandering, and what to do if a person goes missing
• minimising restraint.

Business Outcomes

Care staff will be better equipped to respond to:

• a client’s desire to undertake an activity involving some risk
• suspicions or evidence of neglect or abuse
• a client’s tendency to wander at the risk of becoming lost.

Care staff will also understand the policy of minimal restraint and learn strategies for minimising changed behaviour.