The new Aged Care Act looks to deliver on the royal commission’s recommendation for a human rights-based approach to aged care.
From 1 July 2025, there will also be a positive duty for all providers to uphold the Statement of Rights, strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards and within the Act itself, a focus on the right to make decisions with whatever supports may be necessary.
What does this mean for people who may have difficulty communicating their preferences or decisions? How will their wishes be known if their voice is too soft or difficult for others to understand or they have trouble finding the words? How will they read relevant information if they have difficulty comprehending complex written information?
Many older people experience such changes to their communication skills – often due to neurological conditions such as stroke, parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, acquired brain injury and dementia.
It can become more difficult to know how to best support interaction, particularly when different aids or strategies are needed than speech alone.
See the person – know the person, including how they best communicate
Speech pathologists are the allied health professionals with expertise in assessing communication skills to identify how to best support communication to help both the person and their communication partner – such as care staff – have more successful interactions.
Despite being an integral part of the aged care sector supporting people with swallowing difficulties, speech pathologists are rarely engaged to full scope of practice to support people experiencing such changes in communication.
As we move towards implementation of an Act expecting supported decision-making (not immediately defaulting to substitute decision-making for those where verbal communication is more difficult), quality standards including expectations to “identify and understand individual communication needs and preferences” (Standard 1, 1.1.2(b)) and a Statement of Rights including the right to “access communication aids as required” (8) there are clear expectations that we must do more to ensure the rights of older people with communication support needs.
Communication is a basic human right and vital for quality of life, identity and social connection. We all communicate – and communication can be supported with the right knowledge and tools. See the person – know the person, including how they best communicate.
We all need to know about a person’s communication support plan and embed this into the daily support and care of the person.
A human rights-based approach requires no less.
Kym Torresi is senior advisor aged care at Speech Pathology Australia
We hope you enjoyed this premium article – please add your comments below
Visit our premium portal for more in-depth stories