CHSR Geriatric Seminar Series

Title: Dementia and Care (including the Dementia Registry) 

Presented by Dr Margaret MacAndrew, RN, BN, GCert (Ageing & Dementia), GCAP (FHEA), PhD

Dr Margaret MacAndrew has a joint appointment as Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Queensland University of Technology and Knowledge Translation Research Fellow, Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration. Margaret is a registered nurse with experience in caring for people with dementia in long term care and her research interests focus on improving quality of life and care for people with dementia who wander. Dementia related wandering is a common symptom of dementia that is associated with potentially life threatening outcomes including injury from falls and resident violence, malnutrition and dehydration, sleep deprivation, and leaving a safe environment and not being able to return safely if unattended. While the risks associated with wandering are well documented, in clinical practice, wandering and the associated risk are not routinely assessed. In addition, professional and family carers have reported that there are few guidelines for planning care for people with dementia who wander. To address this issue and provide a resource for carers to plan care around evidence based approaches to mitigating risk associated with wandering, we have developed and conducted preliminary testing of the Safe Walking Assessment and Planning (SWAP) tool.

Please RSVP by 5 July 2019 to [email protected]