Pilot finds seniors embrace digital mental health care
It’s important to design care services for older people based on evidence around what is effective, Silverchain’s Dr Tanya Davison tells Community Care Review.
After receiving $2 million in funding in 2022, Silverchain’s trial has welcomed positive results in addressing mental health concerns in older home-based Australians with digital tools.
Data from the 2020-2022 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing found almost 8 per cent of men and 11 per cent of women aged 65 and over had experienced a mental health condition in the last year – not including dementia – with the likelihood of being diagnosed with a mental health condition increasing markedly for Australians in their 80s and 90s.
Silverchain and a group of around 15 researchers and associate investigators piloted a first-of-its-kind model of care to address the mental health of older Australians in Victoria last year – known as Enhanced Management of home-Based Elders with Depression – and have produced positive results.
The results of the EMBED pilot follow a Silverchain-led study published in the Australian Journal on Ageing last month that found more than 60 per cent of older Australians receiving in home aged care have symptoms of depression or anxiety.
“It’s really important when we’re designing our care services for older people that we’re basing our care on evidence around what is effective,” lead investigator Dr Tanya Davison told Community Care Review.
Silverchain is particularly interested in looking at how they can support the mental health and wellbeing of clients but found a gap in their knowledge around how to do it effectively in the home care setting, said Dr Davison –who is also Silverchain’s director of research discovery and an adjunct professor at Monash University
“So for us we thought it was really important to conduct our own research to address those gaps so that we’re then basing what we’re doing – our initiatives – on the evidence around what is effective, also what is feasible for a home care provider like Silverchain,” she told CCR.
The pilot assessed the delivery of evidence-based psychological treatments through either a digital platform or via telehealth based on the participants choice.
Through the digital platform, participants could receive video consultations with psychologists, therapeutic resources, and interactive tools to support their mental health on a tablet.
“We curate a range of strategies that are useful for this population, and it also meant that we could give people some extra support,” Dr Davison told CCR.
“So things like being able to rate their mood day-to-day and see how that’s changing over time. We could also send people reminders to engage in the strategies that they were using to support their mental health and using a platform enabled us to do that really effectively.”
Dr Davison said they had a very positive response from participants, with many also welcoming the opportunity to learn how to use new digital tools.
Key findings included:
- improved mental health outcomes – a significant reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety among participants following treatment, with 86 per cent reporting the treatment improved their mood, motivation and overall wellbeing
- high client satisfaction – 95 per cent of participants rated the program as “good” or “excellent” and an overwhelming majority expressed a desire for the program to be expanded to reach more older people in need
- workforce training success – 90 per cent of Silverchain’s care team who completed the EMBED training found it relevant and applicable to their work, leading to increased confidence in identifying and supporting clients with depression
The pilot was funded by a $2 million research grant administered by Monash University received in 2022 as part of the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund’s 2021 Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care grants.
Other primary partners included Swinburne University of Technology and Flinders University.
Dr Davison spoke about the EMBED program at Australian Healthcare Week in Sydney this week.
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