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In recognition of Dementia Action Week (September 16-22), the Archdiocese of Melbourne is highlighting the efforts of a specialized dementia unit that is making great strides in their work with patients suffering from dementia.
Called the Lady Lourdes House, a part of St. Bernadette’s Aged Care Residence, the award-winning specialized unit helps patients with dementia manage their symptoms so that they may better transition to mainstream aged care. While the team only began their work in 2020, they have already cared for 21 residents and transitioned 11 of them to mainstream care. Now their work is being hailed as a model for caring for patients with dementia.
According to Melbourne Catholic, the publication of the Archdiocese, Lady Lourdes House utilizes “non-pharmacological interventions” first and foremost. This includes limiting occurrences that could trigger dementia episodes by creating a relaxing and safe environment. They cannot reverse the effects of dementia, but they can help patients to manage its behavioral and psychological symptoms.
Lady Lourdes Unit Coordinator Sue Adhikari commented on the training her team undertook with Dementia Training Australia:
“Ultimately, our success lies in giving residents time and maintaining a consistent approach with a familiar face. We provide them with person-centered care and treat everybody as unique individuals.”
In order to accomplish this, Lady Lourdes Unit forges tight knit relationships not just with the patient, but with the patient’s family as well. A woman named Lilly, who is the daughter of a 74-year-old patient named Bernie, expressed the relief she felt after finding Lady Lourdes Unit, after an emotional search for the right care facility for her father on her family’s budget:
“It was a difficult journey — not just the financial constraints and administrative burdens of navigating a very complicated system, but also the emotional toll,’ says his daughter Lilly. "Our hearts go out to anyone struggling with the complexity of the system and those without the resources that we luckily accessed.”
Her father’s successful time spent at Lady Lourdes prepared him to be transferred to a mainstream aged care facility, but she loved the team at Lady Lourdes so much that she didn’t want her father to leave:
“We didn’t want Dad to leave because we wanted him to have the best care, but we were also conscious that Lady Lourdes has a waiting list, and we didn’t want anyone else to miss out,” Lilly says.
