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NSW Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care --- "Responding to Dementia Needs" [2002] ElderLawRw 5; (2002) 1 Elder Law Review 9


Responding to Dementia Needs

NSW Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care

There are now around 55,000 people with dementia in NSW. With our ageing population the number of people with dementia is expected to increase by 35% over the next ten years. Dementia is a condition that older people fear as it represents loss of independence, the inability to manage one’s own affairs and to care for oneself on a day to day basis. It is also a condition that immediately presents a complex and professionally challenging issue for the legal profession.

As part of the NSW Government’s commitment to protect the rights and interests of people with dementia the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care (DADHC) http://www.add.nsw.gov.au/ is conducting two projects under the NSW Action Plan on Dementia:

A Planning Ahead project to assist older people to be better informed about options such as enduring power of attorney, enduring guardianship and advanced health care directives and
A Dementia Awareness for Lawyers project to increase the ability of legal professionals to recognise and understand dementia. This project will cover how dementia impacts on people’s capacity to make decisions and assist lawyers in how to respond and to increase their knowledge of the options available for substitute decision making.

Both projects aim to improve legal information available to people with dementia and their families.

The Department is responsible for the implementation of the NSW Action Plan on Dementia (1 996-2001), a five year joint plan with NSW Health budgeted at $3.5 million. The Dementia Action Plan falls within the Department’s wider mandate of funding and administering support services for older people and people with disabilities and through informing and influencing the policy and service environment.

Planning Ahead Kit:

Older people are interested in being able to plan ahead for a time when they may not be able to make financial and health decisions for themselves but few are aware of what steps they can take. This was the finding of the Committee on Ageing following their project Taking Charge; Decisions in Later Life. The Department took up the Committee’s recommendation to encourage a wider understanding and use, where appropriate, of the mechanisms that exist for older people.

The Planning Ahead Kit was developed to provide older people and their relatives and friends with information about how to maintain control of financial, lifestyle and health issues when an individual loses their capacity to manage things for themselves. The Kit provides information on options for people to appoint someone to make decisions on their behalf if they lose the capacity to make decisions on their own.

Over twenty information sessions have been successfully completed across a range of locations in NSW. The information sessions were designed to provide key service providers and leaders of community organisations with a simple format for providing advice and information to older people and their families on planning ahead issues.

The Kit is straightforward and easy to read and outlines the three provisions of enduring power of attorney, enduring guardianship and advanced health care directives. The Planning Ahead Kit is available on the Department’s website http://www.add.nsw.gov.au or can be obtained by calling 02 9364 6963.

Dementia Awareness for Lawyers Seminar

Late in 2001, The Centre for Legal Education, UNSW conducted a Dementia Awareness Seminar Programme to increase lawyers’ understanding of dementia and the sensitivity of the advice they offer to their clients with dementia, or those concerned about dementia.

The seminar, included information on the medical background and issues surrounding dementia, legal frameworks for dementia clients, a six-step capacity assessment process and a panel discussion. The seminar, open to all concerned with the issues of dementia and legal capacity, particularly solicitors, barristers, court officers and others in legal practice was quickly booked out and a larger venue had to be found. Dementia is obviously an emerging issue for the legal profession.

Seminar papers are available from the Centre for Legal Education’s Website http://www.cle.unsw.edu.au. Videos and audiotape reproductions of the seminars are also available for those living outside of Sydney and for groups to use for self study sessions.

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