clinical focus
Get moving
New pain management program recognised .
By Elise Hartevelt
An aged care provider has received recognition for trailblazing a new pain management and reablement program .
Aged care provider Whiddon spearheaded the ‘ Exercise 4 Life Program ’, a pain management and reablement initiative focussed on partnering with residents to customise it to their needs .
The program was pinned by the 2022 innovAGEING National Awards and received the Increasing Access to Care and Services award .
“ We ’ re delighted about it ,” Whiddon ’ s General Manager of Strategy and Innovation , Kern Nelson , said .
“ We see this as a new vision for aged care , which is much more
18 agedcareinsite . com . au about reablement and enriching quality of life .”
Join Aged Care Insite ’ s conversation with Nelson about the inspiration behind the program and how it ’ s helped Whiddon ’ s residents .
ACI : Could you tell me about the new program and what role AN-ACC has played ? KN : We ’ ve been designing and trialling the Exercise 4 Life program with Dr Jennie Hewitts , a clinician-researcher and physiotherapist .
In March this year , we started to develop an evidence-based pain management program that could also work as a reablement program . As we know , pain management is a key area of care in aged care .
In the past , under the ACFI instrument , there was a very descriptive approach to pain management . It was all around massages but not evidence-based and of limited effectiveness .
We knew the new AN-ACC model was coming in and saw that as a great opportunity . Whilst allied health services are not directly funded under the AN-ACC model , the instrument encourages a reablement approach .
That gives the provider freedom to develop and offer evidence-based programs around pain management , fall prevention and reablement .
Dr Jennie Hewitt designed a prototype for us and trialled it in one of our care homes . She worked with the residents to find the most effective way to engage them and get the most benefit out of it .
Then , Whiddon trained their [ contract ] physios and went on a trial across three aged care homes . So far , we have gotten great results .
We hope that most of our homes will be running the program by Christmas .
We ’ re now training our physio partners and developing a new position , a therapy assistant role , that will support