Where does risk feature in community care practice with older people with dementia who live alone?

Abstract

Aiming to provide insight into a growing area of aged care services this article reports on five practitioners' perspectives of what were the key elements of their practice in community care for older persons with dementia who live alone. It draws on the findings from the first of two research projects undertaken collaboratively with Mercy Community Care (MCC), a non-profit community care agency, in Sydney, Australia and the University of Sydney in 2003 and 2006. The first project was a pilot qualitative research study focusing on practices of staff who were involved in the Dementia Monitoring Program (DMP), a specialist service for older persons living alone with dementia. Reducing risk is a major consideration driving policy development in community care of people with dementia in Australia. Using this preliminary research as a case study, this article explores the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of community care practices of these workers with older people who lived alone with dementia. The notion that `risk' is the all consuming focus of workers' intervention is challenged in this paper. While reducing risk and increasing the safety of their service users were important elements of these workers' intervention, addressing service users' needs and upholding their human rights remained paramount in workers' intervention with their service users.