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Health Care and Stage Dementia Support Essay example

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In this assignment, I researched about the health problem, dementia. Dementia is one of the serious health problems Australia encounters. This is due to the fact that the aging of population in Australia is increasing. Thus, the number of people who are diagnosed as dementia is increasing every year. Brown & Edwards (2005) suggested that there are approximately 18,000 new cases of dementia in Australia every year. Harris, Nagy and Vardaxis (2006) stated ¡®dementia is a progressive organic mental disorder characterised by chronic personality disintegration, confusion, disorientation, stupor, deterioration of intellectual capacity and function, and impairment of control of memory£¬ judgement and impulses.¡¯ (p.501) Brown& Edwards (2005) …show more content…

Dementia people are usually stayed in the nursing home. It is because their families are not able to take care of them, for physical or time reason. The effect of dementia brings out heavy economic, mental burden to the individual, family, caregivers and the whole society. (Brown & Edwards, 2005)Brown & Edwards (2005) stated ¡®In 2002-2003 the Australian government estimated total expenditure on residential aged care subsidies as $4.3 billion.¡¯ However, much health expenditure is not specifically attributed to dementia in hospital and other health service statistics. Moreover, Brown & Edwards (2005) pointed out that ¡®Residential care is costed at eight different levels of resident dependency.¡¯ High level residential care is primarily provided in nursing homes, low level residential care is provided in hostels, and community care is provided for aged clients in their homes. Dementia leads individuals to lose their live experiences, not only does it bring the financial cost to the families, but also the responsibilities to the caregivers.

A range of community programs are adopted by the Australian government to solve the problem of dementia. These include income support, social and community services, disability programs, and housing assistance

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