Reablement is an important approach to address the everyday living needs of people living with dementia; it is multidisciplinary, such as using occupational therapy and exercise. People living with dementia have a range of functional, cognitive, physical, and behaviour needs, and in the Australian community aged care setting, are being referred for everyday living support. Despite an evidence-informed reablement handbook being freely available (www.hammond.com.au/reablement), evidence-informed reablement is still not routinely accessible. This project had two aims: (1) to explore how reablement is currently provided for people with dementia who are referred for everyday living support in the community, and (2) to explore allied health practitioner perspectives around potential practice change targets. Outcomes from this research (presented here) form part of an ongoing broader project focused on understanding how to implement evidence-informed reablement for community-dwelling Australians living with dementia.

For aim one, a retrospective file audit was conducted with four community aged care providers across three states (NSW, SA, WA) to explore how reablement is currently provided for people with dementia. The providers had not implemented the evidence-informed reablement handbook into practice at the time of data collection. The reablement handbook was used to compare with the clinical file data received from each provider (n=20 cases in total). For aim two, focus groups were used to present the site-specific outcomes from aim one back to the respective allied health teams, and practitioners were encouraged to identify potential practice change targets.

For the audit, interventions delivered partially aligned with the handbook (e.g. personally prescribed multicomponent exercises; provision of compensatory strategies), however, some discrepancies also existed (e.g. limited family involvement in reablement programs, very few written support plans provided to clients). For the focus groups, 15 allied health professionals (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, social work) participated. A range of potential practice change targets were identified, such as more structured functional cognition assessment, updated documentation practices, greater involvement of family supporters, and more deliberate future planning with clients for beyond their reablement program.

While partial alignment with the reablement handbook was encouraging, practitioners also identified a range of areas where potential to enhance reablement practice for people with dementia existed. The next step for this work is to engage with a broad range of stakeholders to determine a nationally relevant implementation strategy for evidence-informed reablement in dementia.