1 Guidelines for Palliative Care in Residential Aged Care Facilities

conduct the Australian Palliative Aged Care (APAC) project. The team’s tasks were to develop guidelines for palliative care in residential aged care and a palliative care education program for staff working in aged care facilities. The project is now in its final stages. This article provides a brief overview of the project and a preview of the guidelines that are a world-first for palliative care and aged care. In Australia, an increasing number of deaths occur in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs), indicating the need for aged care workers to assume more responsibility for the care of dying residents (Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing 2003). Also, as the statistics indicate, older people entering RACFs are increasingly frail and many will remain in such care until they die (Australian Institute for Health and Welfare 2002). In RACFs the residents are more likely to have chronic illnesses, prompting a different approach to palliative care than the previous emphasis on patients dying of cancer. These factors contribute to the increasing urgency for aged care workers to regard a palliative approach as an essential component in meeting the needs of frail, elderly residents and their families