Publications by authors named "Lowthian J"

Respite and permanent transition to residential aged care are processes that are designed to support preferences and needs of people living with dementia and their carers as the disease progresses. These services are highly variable in acceptability, accessibility, and availability for the caregiving dyad, often not reflecting a person-centred, co-ordinated and cohesive approach. This study aimed to use a two-phase realist synthesis to explore how respite and permanent transition models of care work in different contexts, through different mechanisms to produce varying outcomes.

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Life story work (LSW) uses a narrative, reminiscence approach to capturing memories from one's life and has shown positive outcomes for participants. However, LSW in aged care has been criticized for being resource intensive, often involving care staff using pre-determined process and output formats. This pilot study explored participants' lived experiences of a novel co-creation approach to LSW conducted predominantly with university students and older adults in residential aged care and retirement communities, producing multi-modal outputs.

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Introduction: Older adults can face challenges when seeking care from emergency departments (EDs) due to presenting with multiple comorbidities and non-specific symptoms. Psychosocial care is a possible target to help improve ED care for this population. It is possible that digital health technologies can be implemented within emergency settings to improve the provision of psychosocial care.

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Article Synopsis
  • Age-related hearing loss is common in older adults, negatively impacting communication and quality of life, and may be worsened by cochlear degeneration and inflammation.
  • The study aimed to assess whether daily low-dose aspirin affects the progression of hearing loss in healthy individuals aged 70 and older compared to a placebo over 3 years.
  • Results showed that aspirin did not significantly alter hearing loss progression compared to placebo, with a similar percentage of participants in both groups reporting hearing loss over the study period.
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Background: Social isolation and loneliness (SIL) worsens mortality and other outcomes among older adults as much as smoking. We previously tested the impact of the HOW R U? intervention using peer support from similar-aged volunteers and demonstrated reduced SIL among older adults discharged from the emergency department (ED). Generativity, defined as "the interest in establishing and guiding the next generation," can provide an alternative theoretical basis for reducing SIL via intergenerational programs between members of younger and older generations.

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Background: There is wide acknowledgement in the literature that social connection is protective against loneliness and depression. More robust research, however, is needed to evaluate interventions that promote social connection. This protocol paper outlines the evaluation of a community-wide social connection program, , in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia to support people 65 years and older to increase access to local community services/activities; and to ascertain impact on social connection, loneliness, depressive symptoms, physical and mental wellbeing, and use of health services.

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Objectives: Researchers face numerous challenges when recruiting participants for health and social care research. This study reports on the challenges faced recruiting older adults for , a co-designed holistic intervention to manage and reduce frailty, and highlights lessons learnt amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: A qualitative study design was used.

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Background And Objectives: Public health concerns surrounding social isolation and loneliness heightened during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, as infection prevention measures led to increased feelings of loneliness and depression. Our objective was to evaluate the implementation of the HOW-R-U? program, during the pandemic (March 2020-December 2021). HOW-R-U? is a weekly volunteer-delivered telephone program designed to facilitate social connection and ease feelings of social isolation, loneliness, and depression in older people.

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Background: Older people experiencing depression and anxiety have higher rates of health service utilisation than others, but little is known about whether these influence their seeking of emergency care. The aim was to examine the associations between symptoms of depression and the use of emergency health care, in an Australian context, among a population of people aged 70 years and over initially free of cardiovascular disease, dementia or major physical disability.

Methods: We undertook secondary analyses of data from a large cohort of community-dwelling Australians aged [Formula: see text]70 years.

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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the implementation of physical distancing and self-isolation strategies worldwide. However, these measures have significant potential to increase social isolation and loneliness. Among older people, loneliness has increased from 40% to 70% during COVID-19.

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Introduction: The Core Outcome Measures for Improving Care (COM-IC) project aims to deliver practical recommendations on the selection and implementation of a suite of core outcomes to measure the effectiveness of interventions for dementia care.

Methods And Analysis: COM-IC embeds a participatory action approach to using the Alignment-Harmonisation-Results framework for measuring dementia care in Australia. Using this framework, suitable core outcome measures will be identified, analysed, implemented and audited.

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Rationale: Veterans living with dementia in long-term care have complex needs, with variable manifestation of symptoms of dementia that interact with their lived experience. Best practice dementia care prioritises nonpharmacological interventions; of which few have strong evidence. Implementation of evidence is complex, with evaluation of outcomes and processes necessary.

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Rationale: Challenges associated with translating evidence into practice are well recognised and calls for effective strategies to reduce the time lag and successfully embed evidence-based practices into usual care are loud and clear. While a plethora of nonpharmacological interventions for people with dementia exist; few are based on strong evidence and there is little consideration for programme operationalisation in the complex environment of long-term care.

Aims And Objectives: This paper describes the preparation for the implementation of the Weaving Evidence into Action for Veterans with dementia project, incorporating the codesign of delivery of four evidence-based, nonpharmacological interventions.

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Objective: Incontinence is one of the main reasons for institutionalisation into residential aged care. It is linked with increased falls, skin breakdown, depression, social isolation and impaired quality of life. Studies over the past decade have demonstrated poor-quality incontinence care, which has led to ongoing development of best practice guidelines and educational resources.

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The home care workforce provides essential support for older people with dementia to live a life of fulfillment. "," an evidence-informed conversation tool, aims to negotiate risk around everyday activities between home care workers, people with dementia and their informal carers. This paper describes tool conversion into electronic format and preparation for implementation throughout a large Australian health and aged care service provider, utilizing the Implementation Framework for Aged Care (IFAC).

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Older Australians may live up to 10 years in ill health, most likely chronic disease-related. Those with multimorbidity report more healthcare visits, poorer health and take more medications compared with people with a single chronic disease. They are also at higher risk of hospital admission and poor quality of life.

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Objective: Cycling Without Age (CWA) involves taking residents on outdoor trishaw (electric bicycle) rides driven by trained 'pilots'. This study explored the CWA experience from the perspective of residents and family members, staff and volunteer pilots from a residential aged care home in Queensland, Australia.

Methods: A qualitative descriptive design was used.

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Volunteer peer support is an approach that enables a supportive connection between volunteers and a sub-set of community members with shared experiences or interests. To implement co-designed strategies to support older women to maintain independence and optimise wellbeing in Australia, a volunteer peer support approach was proposed. There was limited literature describing volunteer peer support frameworks to underpin interventions of this kind; and given the increasing desire for engagement of individuals and communities, articulation of the key components of such a framework is warranted.

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Background: Enhancing community based Chronic Disease Management (CDM) will make significant impacts on all major chronic disease management outcome measures. There are no successful models of community hubs to triage and manage chronic diseases that significantly reduce readmissions, cost and improve chronic disease knowledge. Chronic heart failure (CHF) management foundations are built on guideline derived medical therapies (GDMT).

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Objectives: Polypharmacy and frailty are two common geriatric conditions. In community-dwelling healthy older adults, we examined whether polypharmacy is associated with frailty and affects disability-free survival (DFS), assessed as a composite of death, dementia, or persistent physical disability.

Methods: We included 19,114 participants (median age 74.

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Rationale, Aims And Objectives: The field of implementation science is critical for embedding research evidence into healthcare practice, benefiting individuals, organizations, governments, and the broader community. Implementation science is messy and complex, underpinned by many theories and frameworks. Efficacious interventions for older people with multiple comorbidities exist, yet many lack effectiveness evaluation relevant to pragmatic implementation within aged care practice.

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Objective: Residential aged care (RAC) quality is often measured as part of regulatory compliance. To inform care delivery and service improvements, we developed a consumer experience survey.

Methods: Validation study incorporating 2018-2019 survey data (n = 1504 individuals, 25 RAC homes) and test-retest reliability evaluation.

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Frailty is a condition characterised by increased vulnerability and decline of physical and cognitive reserves, most often affecting older people. This can lead to a cascade of repeated hospitalisations, further decline and ultimately loss of independence. Frailty and pre-frailty are modifiable; interventions such as physical exercise, cognitive training, social connection and improved nutrition, especially in a group setting, can mitigate frailty.

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Issue Addressed: Australia's ageing population has growing health care needs, challenging timely health service provision. In rural and regional areas, older Australians have poorer health care outcomes and higher rates of potentially preventable hospital (PPH) admissions. The objective of this study was to identify Australian Governmental initiatives designed to reduce PPH of older adults (65 years and over) in rural and regional areas.

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