Palliative Care for people with disabilities
End of Life and Palliative Care for People Living with a Disability
The Better Health Channel provides end of life and palliative care information for people living with a disability including planning ahead, choosing a preferred site for care, and advance care planning. Click here for more information.
Palliative Care Easy Read Resource
Palliative Care Victoria and VALID have created new resources to help professionals talk to people living with a disability about palliative care, death and grief.
You don’t have to navigate those challenging discussions on your own. There are health professionals and case workers you can lean on for help. Palliative Care Victoria and VALID have developed easy-to-read and easy-to-digest tools and resources available to help people have those difficult conversations. Click here to access these resources.
Disability Residential Services Palliative Care guide
Published by the Victoria Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, the Disability Residential Services Palliative Care guide aims to improve the quality of life of disability residents with a life threatening condition. The guide steps the reader through the key areas for support and identifies documents, training and resources available and where to find them. The guide also describes the important role of Palliative Care providers in the provision of end-of-life care for disability residents. Click here to read more.
Disability Residential Service Palliative Care Guide
The Guide aims to improve the quality of life of disability residents with a life threatening condition. It describes the important role of palliative care providers in the provision of end-of-life care to disability residents. It steps the reader through the main areas for support and identifies documents, training and resources available and where to find them. Click here
Victorian Government Department of Health: Disability information
The human services section of the website of the Victorian Government Department of Families, Fairness and Housing provides a range of information about services for people with a disability. This includes information about National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and facts sheets about arrangements between the Victorian and Australian governments to ensure, in the context of the NDIS, ongoing access to specialist disability services for people with a disability aged 65 years and older, including people living in state government funded supported accommodation.
The Office for Disability
The Office for Disability is the first of its kind in Australia and leads the Victorian Government’s drive for universal change to improve the lives of people with a disability.
The office was set up to work with private and public sector partners to promote the government’s long-term vision for inclusion and help improve community attitudes.
Palliative and End of Life Care for people
with disability
In consultation with the North and West Metropolitan Region Palliative Care Consortium, Yooralla has published the “Palliative and end of life care for people with disability” document. This document is aimed at service managers and care workers nationally. The document has been developed with consultation from disability and palliative care experts and has undertaken a consumer review prior to publication. Click here to go to the Yooralla website and read insights into practice.
Talking End of Life …with people with intellectual disability (T EL)
Helping people with an intellectual disability to learn about dying and death just as they learn about every other aspect of life is really important. Teaching about the end of life is hard though. Talking End of Life …with people with intellectual disability (TEL) shows you how to teach people with intellectual disability about the end of life. TEL is designed for disability support workers but is also helpful for others including families, health professionals, and educators. Click here for link.
Please watch the video below to see Professor Roger Stancliffe from the University of Sydney describe why TEL is important.
Go to the Modules tab to start using TEL.
Pain Assessment
Click on this link to access a range of information and tools about pain assessment including the following assessment tools.
Wong Baker Faces tool: A pain assessment tool developed for use in children, suitable for anyone over the age of 3.
Abbey Pain Scale (125kb pdf): A pain assessment tool developed for use in those with dementia who are unable to communicate.
This guide is for Disability Support Workers in supporting people living with disability and especially those who also have a serious or life-limiting illness. Whether your role is in the community, hospital or residential care setting, you will no doubt be involved in providing comfort and support to people living with disability who have serious illness and are nearing the end stages of life.
PEPA/IPEPA aims to help you develop your skills, knowledge and confidence in the palliative approach to care and educates you on how to:
• Provide support and comfort
• Manage symptoms
• Reduce stress and anxiety
• Give support to family and friends.
Click here to access the guide