practical living
As well as surveying the transport workers, we’ve just completed
some site audits looking at the physical environment at the railway
station and the airport. We also plan to talk to some people
with dementia and their care partners in the area about their
experiences of using transport in and out of Bundaberg. We’re at
the fact-finding stage, just exploring, looking at what the situation
is now, and then from there we’ll look at what steps we need to
take to improve accessibility.
Following the results of the survey with transport workers, how
might you go about insuring they are onboard with improving
the experiences of travellers with dementia?
With Brisbane Airport, we had a three-pronged approach to
improving accessibility for people with dementia. One of them
was providing dementia awareness training for the staff. Just
a short and sharp session to give customer-facing staff an
awareness of what dementia is, how it might affect people, what
might be points of stress, getting through the airport, and how
they can help people to manage that environment as best as
possible. Staff awareness training is really important.
We also consulted with the airport in Brisbane to look at ways
they could improve the environment – looking at signage and
way-finding, and having quiet areas for people to sit in, and
looking at the location of toilets and things like that.
Also, using all of this knowledge as well to empower the
travellers with dementia and their companions to come in with
as much knowledge about the experience as possible. We
developed a guide to the airport for travellers with dementia to
help them go through all the steps they need to go through to get
to the airport and travel safely.
I see that we have the potential to do it here in Bundaberg,
in a regional sense. I would be interested in working with these
organisations to look at, again, some form of dementia awareness
training, but also looking at environmental changes that could
be made to make the physical environment more accessible.
Also, developing some kind of guide or provide some sort of
information to travellers about the region and about accessing it
for travellers with dementia.
What else goes into making a region as dementia friendly
as possible?
It really is about ensuring the physical environment is easy
to navigate and free of clutter, as it minimises the amount of
competing stimuli people with dementia have to deal with. Make
sure you have clear paths and signage. In fact, if you make the
environment more accessible to people with dementia, it makes it
easy for any of us to get about, particularly in places like airports,
which can be very confusing.
It’s also about knowledge and awareness of the public. It would
be great to target places where people tend to go when they visit
Bundaberg. Target those business, and look at working with the
staff there to provide as seamless an experience as possible.
The thing that’s really important when thinking about travelling
with dementia, or dementia generally, is that when we think
about dementia, people often go to that end stage where people
are affected severely and their function is very minimal. People
can live with dementia for quite a number of years, and in the
early stages they’re still active, they still want to get out. They’re
still quite capable of travelling and enjoying life, but sometimes
it’s small things that need to be tweaked to ensure they’re
able to manage it – you know, helping them to make sure the
environment’s not too confusing, or that the situations aren’t too
stressful, and that people understand if they need a bit of extra
time, and those sorts of things.
With that extra bit of support, people can engage in their life for
much longer than when we expect.
A diagnosis of dementia used to be thought of as something
where you just go home, try to be comfortable and wait to
die. Now we’re very much aware that people can live well with
dementia for quite a long time and be actively engaged.
What do you imagine for the future of Bundaberg when you
can put that dementia-friendly stamp on the region?
Well, I just think Bundaberg has a lot of potential because it’s
already a very age-friendly place to travel to, and there’s a lot of
places people can visit easily. With a bit of tweaking, we can make
it more accessible as a location for people with dementia to travel
to and have a good experience.
My vision is that we could have a network of these locations
around Australia, so that couples – where one partner has
dementia – can travel to these places and know they’ll have a
good ho liday.
Bundaberg is nice and flat – it’s like a gateway to the coast.
There’s lots to do along the coastline. There are turtles, there’s
whale watching, and it’s not far from Brisbane. It’s accessible by
plane and by train. It has a lot of potential. It just needs that extra
tweaking so it can be marketed as dementia friendly. It just opens
itself up to a whole other aspect of tourism. ■
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