Agents of Change Project
The ‘Agents of Change’ project aims to improve post-diagnosis care for people with dementia and their carers through implementing these three key recommendations from the Clinical Practice Guidelines for dementia:
- People living in the community should be offered occupational therapy
- People with dementia should be strongly encouraged to exercise
- Carers and family should have access to respite, and to programs to support and optimise their ability to provide care
To achieve this the project team have established a National Quality Collaborative, currently across 30 sites nationally, where training and support are provided to health professionals to implement these recommendations using evidence-based occupational therapy, exercise and carer support.
Part of the project will be an evaluation to assess the success and feasibility of using the National Quality Collaborative model to train “implementation clinicians” (health professionals from general practitioners, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists who are motivated to improve dementia care).
Final Report
‘Agents of Change: Creating National Quality Collaboratives to Improve Dementia Care’
Publications
Cations, M., Crotty, M., Fitzgerald, J. A., Kurrle, S., Cameron, I. D., Whitehead, C., … & Radisic, G. (2018). Agents of change: establishing quality improvement collaboratives to improve adherence to Australian clinical guidelines for dementia care. Implementation Science, 13(1), 123. [More Information]
Cations, M., Radisic, G., Perrelle, L. et al. (2019) Post-diagnostic allied health interventions for people with dementia in Australia: a spotlight on current practice. BMC Res Notes 12, 559 [More Information]
See past newsletters for progress updates:
January 2018 Newsletter, May 2018 Newsletter, September 2018 Newsletter, December 2018 Newsletter, May 2019 Newsletter, August 2019 Newsletter, December 2019 Newsletter
The project is hosted by Flinders University and funded by the CDPC and the NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Initiative.