Resources | Health and support needs of younger people with disabilities in aged care

3DN is now part of the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health

It is well acknowledged that inappropriate placement of younger people (aged <65 years) in residential aged care (RAC), often due to a lack of other options, contributes to a number of significant issues, including social isolation, lack of appropriate recreational activities, and a lack of support to actively participate in everyday and community-based activities.

This project utlilsed existing linked datasets to identify the health, and support needs of younger people with disabilities discharged from NSW hospitals to RAC from 2001-2015. We used these findings to identify ways to improve health outcomes for younger people discharged to RAC. The project involved people with lived experience to ensure the work is relevant to the needs and wishes of younger people with disabilities. This project was funded by the Summer Foundation.

Project members

Prof Julian Trollor, Dr Rachel Cvejic, Dr Simone Reppermund, Dr Preeyaporn Srasuebkul, Prof Brian Draper, Dr. Adrienne Withall, Dr Tim Watkins, DR Adrian Walker.

Project aims

The aims of our project were to:

Determine the pathways for younger people with disabilities to RAC. We will examine clinical and sociodemographic predictors of discharge from hospital to RAC.
Describe the health profile of younger people with disabilities discharged to RAC and compare this to a matched community-dwelling cohort.
Compare short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes following hospitalisation for younger people with disabilities discharged to RAC to those of a matched community-dwelling cohort (e.g. time to and rates of representation to the emergency department (ED) and/or readmission and risk of death).