Australian Catholic University Ltd in partnership with Amelo Dental and Southern Cross Care (Qld) has been awarded an ARIIA grant for their project ‘Increasing capacity of aged care workers, consumers and families to improve oral health’.
Pneumonia risk, emergency hospital visits, food avoidance, pain, weight loss and social withdrawal can be reduced by improving access to oral health care in aged care. Cost, staff knowledge and training and access to the correct oral hygiene products are the key barriers to quality oral health care. This project seeks to overcome these three barriers.
Staff at Southern Cross Care QLD (SCCQ) are interested in improving oral health and training in residential aged care and see this research as being a vehicle to this end. The project will develop, pilot and review an app-based oral health and education protocol to improve the oral health and general wellbeing of residents at SCCQ aged care services.
The impacts of the protocol on consumer health and wellbeing and staff confidence in oral health management will be compared to standard practices by measuring changes in oral health behaviours, social interaction, and diet before and after the introduction of the protocol. The project will be consumer and industry driven using co-design methodologies and include interviews with consumers and staff on their experiences with the protocol, and their advice for improvements. The project will also investigate the protocol’s scalability for use throughout the sector.