Dementia Rehabilitation Knowledge Hub

People with dementia have the right to rehabilitation and evidence-based care that supports their autonomy, wellbeing, and community participation. Best practice post-diagnostic care includes rehabilitation strategies to maintain cognitive function, everyday abilities, emotional wellbeing, and social engagement. Yet, integration of rehabilitation strategies into dementia care in community settings remains inconsistent, and the value of such integration is often under-recognised, meaning people with dementia are missing out.

This project aims to directly improve outcomes for people with dementia, their families, and care partners by generating awareness of the right to rehabilitation and increasing the availability of dementia rehabilitation services nationally. This will be achieved by accelerating the adoption of evidence-based, best practice dementia rehabilitation across community health services through the co-design, pilot, and evaluation of a Dementia Rehabilitation Implementation Hub.

The Hub will serve two purposes:

1. A practical, user-focused platform to inform clinicians and service providers about evidence-based dementia rehabilitation, empowering them to offer or refer for dementia rehabilitation from the point of diagnosis.
2. A reliable, sustainable source of information about dementia rehabilitation strategies for people with lived experience, supporting their right to access rehabilitation.

By supporting multidisciplinary collaboration, strengthening workforce capability, and educating communities, the Hub will improve the translation of evidence into practice and increase access to dementia rehabilitation in community settings.

This project is funded by a Dementia Australia Research Foundation Translation Grant in Dementia Care.

For further information, reach out to Assoc Prof Nathan D’Cunha.