Older people

Caring for our ageing population

Many nurses work in settings where they are caring for older people. This may be in specialist palliative care facilities, in hospitals, aged care facilities or in other community settings. Those working with older people would consider much of their work to be in the area of palliative care.

With our growing number of older people many of those being cared for will have dementia. In the last 10 years deaths due to dementia and Alzheimer's disease have more than doubled and is now the second leading cause of death in Australia. [1]

CareSearch has a dedicated resource, palliAGED providing evidence based guidance on palliative care for older people. This resource includes dementia and other care issues relevant to the care of older people in any setting. The ELDAC website has a collection of toolkits aimed at supporting end of life care for older people.