Introduction
The burden of care for people with dementia is expected
to intensify with the prevalence of people in Australia with
dementia predicted to increase over fourfold from 245 400 in
2010, to over 1.1 million in 2050 [1]. The Australian Institute
of Health and Welfare [2] estimated that nearly 50% of
residents in long-term care (LTC) facilities have dementia.
With the declining number of registered nurses within the
aged care workforce, the greater part of direct dementia
care is provided by personal care workers (i.e. an estimated
57.8%) [3] whose education and training in dementia are
often inadequate to prepare them to provide the desired type
and standard of care services required in Australia