I'm preparing for a keynote lecture at the APA Conference in Sydney in a couple of weeks time, looking at aged care as a 'bellwether' of the physiotherapy profession at large. (Spoiler alert if you're going) I'm going to argue that if we can work out how to provide meaningful physiotherapy to older adults, we'll fix a lot of the problems now besetting the rest of the profession (abstract here). Part of the joy of this kind of work is the opportunity it gives you to think 'otherwise' about seemingly obvious, taken-for-granted things, like ageing as a natural biological process, or our inalienable role as the leaders of rehabilitation for the elderly and disabled. Testing why we think … [Read more...] about An accident waiting to happen
Physiotherapy and the poverty of aged care
An Australian senator claimed a few days ago that one-third of all pensioners in Australia were living in poverty. If this is correct, it is a shocking statistic for a developed country like Australia, and a wake up call for professions like physiotherapy, which needs to have a voice in the discussion about the future of aged care. The Australian online journal The Conversation checked the claims made by Senator Jacqui Lambie, and agreed with her assertion, citing a 'widely reported OECD Study - Pensions at a Glance 2015' which showed that, 'According to the latest available figures, poverty rates of people aged over 65 were very high in Korea (50%), Australia (34%), and Mexico … [Read more...] about Physiotherapy and the poverty of aged care