A Practical Guide for Aged Care Workers

Aged Care with Altruism is a practical guide on how best to provide care, what personal qualities are useful, and some difficulties one might encounter. It describes both the practical component of providing care, with altruism, which is the regard for others as a principle of action. ‘Aged Care with Altruism’ seeks to fill a gap in the knowledge base, for educators, aged care workers, and prospective aged care workers.

It incorporates contemporary philosophies towards a more holistic caring attitude in aged care practice. As a teaching guide and prescribed reading text, Aged Care with Altruism is deliberately written in a manner that will be readily understood by care workers who are already working with older people, and prospective care workers who may be thinking of entering aged care work. Care workers will come to appreciate that older people, are people first. Just as the young are sometimes penalized for their youth, so too are the aged sometimes penalized for being old. Why should human characteristics like exuberance, vitality, caution and wit be designated to a particular age group, or the physical appearance of tattoos, piercing, wrinkles or walking frames evoke prejudices in our society? Developing a tolerance and understanding of individuality, regardless of age, gender, weight and height, and placing value on attributes such as sincerity, kindness and honesty may reduce the penalty of being old, young, an individual. As the bumper sticker says, “What the heck is ‘normal’ anyhow”?

Australia is facing a well-recognised demographic change. As the number, and proportion, of older people in the population increases, the training and retention of aged care workers will become a pressing need. As an encouragement for genuine care workers to train and remain engaged in care work, I am hoping Aged Care with Altruism will be widely read and the information used positively to enhance later life living for older people.

WHAT THEY SAY

“…this book covers everything in an easy to understand dialogue, if venturing into Aged Care courses or volunteer work I would say it is a must read to understand what is fully involved.”                    
Shannon – studying Certificate III in Home and Community Care

“This book is an excellent introduction that will provide anyone reading it with a solid foundation in understanding ageing. Its particular strengths lie not only in the way that the author brings together a mass of details, but how they provide learning opportunities within the chapters to enable readers to apply their understanding of the information in both personal and professional contexts. It lives up to its title and most definitely delivers knowledge for practice.”
- Professor Yvonne Wells – La Trobe University, Associate Editor (Book Reviews,  Australasian Journal of Ageing

“It contains essential information for care workers in Australia”
- Yun-Hee, The University of Sydney, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery

“The author provides detailed descriptions of how to perform personal care tasks with great care while preserving the dignity of the person receiving the care. In this respect it differs from other books of its kind because it is written in the words of, and from the perspective of, an aged care worker as opposed to the formal language of the aged care training sector.”
Karen Teshuva,  Australian Institute for Primary Care and Ageing, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

“I have suggested that your book would be a good reading pre-requisite for the course”
- Sue – graduate of 2012 Certificate III in Aged Care and Home and Community Care

“sensible, detailed advice, informed by decades of experience and study, with enormous respect for the independence and dignity of the older person”
-  Australian Ageing Agenda, Bookshelf Review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JK Pearce has a Diploma in Home Science and a Graduate Certificate in Gerontology. She has been engaged in the study of older people and ageing (gerontology), and has worked extensively with older people, for over forty years. She is a member of the Australian Association of Gerontology. Having lived and worked throughout New Zealand and Australia, and in the last twenty years in rural Australia, she has personally assisted many older people living in the community, especially those aged 85 years and over, to continue living independently in their own homes. This book represents an accumulation of her knowledge and understanding, substantiated by her many years of practical experience, gained through working with older people.