Driving after a dementia diagnosis will be the hot topic of discussion at Central Highlands Rural Health’s Annual General Meeting on Thursday, 16 February 2023, at the Kyneton Ambulatory Care Centre from 7.30pm.
There is a high prevalence of people living with dementia across the Macedon Ranges and Hepburn Shires.
According to a 2022 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, 517 people were living with dementia in the Macedon Ranges Shire, of which 204 were males, and 314 were female. In Hepburn Shire, there are 389 people living with dementia, with 240 females and 149 males diagnosed.
Guest speaker at this public event is Professor E. (Joe) Ibrahim, a medical specialist and academic in aged care who has been a practising senior consultant specialist in geriatric medicine with over 30 years of clinical experience.
Several years ago, Prof Ibrahim produced an animated video addressing the complex issues involved in assessing whether a person with dementia is fit to drive. He believes screening this video at the annual general meeting will help generate discussion, and possibly debate, among the public and health professionals during a Q&A session.
“It’s not so much a discussion about how and when to decide to stop driving when a person receives a dementia diagnosis, more about how a person transitions to becoming a passenger,” Prof Ibrahim said.
“And the conversations and decisions with family and friends that follow.”
Over his long and distinguished career, Prof Ibrahim has been Head of the Health Law and Ageing Research Unit at Monash University and, more recently, Adjunct Professor at the Australian Centre for Evidence Based Aged Care at La Trobe University.
He has been awarded Fellowships with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Australian Faculty of Public Health Medicine and was a founding member of the Clinical Liaison Service (2002-2009), the first clinical service in the world to assist a Victorian Coroner’s Office to investigate system failures associated with premature health and aged care deaths.
Lead author of Recommendations for prevention of injury-related deaths in residential aged care services, Prof Ibrahim, helped to inform approaches for protecting residents from abuse and poor practices and ensuring proper clinical and medical care standards are maintained and practised.
Prof Ibrahim completed the first comprehensive national study of injury-related deaths among nursing home residents in the world, considered one of the Top 10 influential research studies in 2017, published in the Medical Journal of Australia and was one of three people recognised by the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend's “People Who Mattered 2019: Health”.
He has been pivotal in influencing national policy, evidenced by the provision of expert testimony and citation in the Australian Law Reform Commission into Elder Abuse, the Carnell and Paterson Report, the Commonwealth Senate Inquiry for protecting residents from abuse and poor practices, the House of Representatives Inquiry House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs Inquiry and Report on Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence (2021) and more recently the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s Interim Report Neglect (2019) Special Report into COVID-19 (2020) and Final Report (2021).
Prof Ibrahim has also provided evidence to the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s Improving the Response of the Justice System to Sexual Offences (2020).
His more recent submissions were to the United Nations Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by older persons addressing “A human rights analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on persons in Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities (2021)” and “The Impact of Sexual Violence in Residential Aged Care on the Rights of Older Women (2021)”.
Prof Ibrahim’s ongoing research is investigating approaches to reducing harm to older persons and improving their quality of life.
To register your interest in attending the 2023 Central Highlands Rural Health Annual General Meeting, email communications@chrh.org.au
