How well do you know dementia care? New tool has the answer

A new app-based tool has been launched to guide aged care providers on their staff education needs, ahead of the introduction of new aged care standards that will require organisations to regularly train staff to deliver quality dementia care.

Dementia Australia has developed the new tool, ‘Tell TiNA’, as part of its ‘Ask Annie’ dementia education app for care workers.

It explores what staff already know about dementia care and where they can further develop, to help them and their employers better understand their dementia training needs.

Nurses core to quality dementia care

Dementia Australia has a strong focus on supporting nurses to deliver quality dementia care, given their critical roles across services used by people with dementia, including aged care, primary care, and tertiary care settings.

“People often misunderstand dementia to be an older person’s condition, but it is not a natural part of ageing,” says Dementia Australia Executive Director of Services, Advocacy and Research, Dr Kaele Stokes. “A key focus for us is really how we can support nurses to have the skills and capability that they need, to be able to deliver strong dementia care, and often that is based on just some simple shifts in perspective and understanding.”

Tell TiNA presents true or false statements that are framed in a particular way to identify strengths and gaps in knowledge. It provides a report to employers identifying where capability needs to be built.
“We know that while nursing staff and medical staff have practical knowledge and exposure to people living with dementia, often there’s not consistent educational training in dementia,” says Dr Stokes. “This can negatively impact the experience that people living with dementia and their families and carers have.”

Better communication key to improving care

She says feedback from people living with dementia and their families and carers suggests knowledge gaps centre on communication challenges.

“So if, for example, they have trauma from their past, there might be particular things that are triggering a certain response,” she says. “So understanding a little bit more about how to engage effectively and minimise the risk of behavioural emergencies or escalation of particular behaviours that can lead to higher levels of staff time and effort, and might result in serious incidents.”

“These are the sorts of things that tend to escalate when staff aren’t equipped to support someone as effectively as they could, and often the exposure to dementia is relatively limited from a skills point of view and from an education point of view,” says Dr Stokes.

Dementia training: More than a one-and-done fix

She says the tool is mapped against the National Dementia Education and Training Standards Framework and is designed to go hand in hand with a longer-term workforce training strategy.

The Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards – due to come into effect in November – mandate that aged care workers must regularly receive training in relation to dementia care.

“It’s not about a one-and-done approach. It’s not about taking everyone off the floor at the same time and providing generic, broad-ranging education,” says Dr Stokes.

ACN and dementia education

The Australian College of Nursing recognises the importance of offering high-quality education related to dementia.

“Over 400,000 Australians currently have dementia, and that number is expected to almost double over the next two decades,” says ACN National Director Nursing Education, Dr Zachary Byfield. “It is essential healthcare workers are sufficiently skilled to provide care in this area.”

ACN’s Dementia Care single unit of study is a 150-hour course that can be built on as part of a Graduate Certificate. Introductory dementia care is also covered in the Aged Care Transition to Practice Program for registered nurses developing their role in aged care, and the Dementia or Delirium: Differentiation and Management CPD course is free to ACN members.

More information

A preview version of Tell TiNA can be accessed by downloading Dementia Australia’s AskAnnie mobile app. Read more here: Dementia training needs analysis: Tell TiNA | Dementia Australia

Dementia Action Week 2025 will be held from Monday 15 to Sunday 21 September, which includes World Alzheimer’s Day on Sunday 21 September. This year’s theme is ‘Nobody can do it alone’, recognising that dementia doesn’t just impact the person living with the condition and their immediate carers; it also impacts their family, friends and wider social network.