About the care of older people toolkit

The Care of older people toolkit comprises a number of key topics (domains) that contain practical, user-friendly tools to help hospital staff prevent the decline in function often experienced by older people during their hospital stay.

Each topic (domain) contains:

  • five tips (main things to remember) about the domain that you might like to use as a starting point
  • information about the domain
  • why the domain is important
  • how to identify problems in the domain area
  • how to prevent these problems from occurring
  • how to manage them if they do occur, including strategies for patients and their families or carers
  • what needs to be considered for discharge
  • an illustrative case study.

Embedded within The toolkit are links to relevant tools or resources. The link will take you to a Resource Review which contains relevant information about the resource or tool.

Some tools have a field-testing template, also embedded in the review. This has been completed for tools and resources that were developed by the domain leads as part of this project.  They may also include information about how the tool was tested and the main findings.

Copies of some resources or tools are not included in The toolkit due to copyright or other issues. Refer to the Resource review page for information on how these can be obtained.

Domains

The toolkit domains include:

  1. Person-centred practice
  2. Assessment communication and person-centred practice
  3. Falls, mobility and self-care
  4. Nutrition and swallowing
  5. Cognition — dementia, delirium and depression
  6. Continence
  7. Medication
  8. Pressure injuries and skin tears
  9. Oral health care
  10. Pain
  11. Palliative approach to caring for older people.