Dr Sally Day
University of Sydney
Grant: $24,530
Older people living alone with dementia: Exploring unmet needs, and barriers and facilitators to support
Dr Sally Day is an early career researcher and occupational therapy lecturer. In 2024, she completed her PhD titled “Occupational therapy interventions for people with dementia from diverse groups: A realist inquiry.” Sally has extensive clinical experience in health and aged care in Australia and the UK. She provides training in the Care of People with dementia in their Environments (COPE) program to facilitate implementation of this evidence-based intervention. Her research interests include dementia, occupational therapy, supporting diverse groups and pragmatic implementation of research to improve the life experience for people with dementia.
This project we will conduct interviews with older people with dementia who live alone, their families and health and aged care professionals to understand the current unmet health and psychosocial needs of people living alone with dementia, the challenges they experience, the supports and services currently available to them, and the barriers to equitable care for this group. The information gathered from this project will inform service improvement to better support the health, social, functional and emotional needs of this potentially vulnerable population.