A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO AGED CARE AND SUPPORT.
Ageing often brings changes that affect daily life — how meals are managed, how medications are taken, how safely someone moves around, or how support fits into the day.
For many people, understanding how aged care works, how to access support, and what day-to-day care actually looks like can feel confusing or overwhelming.
A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO AGED CARE AND SUPPORT brings together a practical, plain-English guide to how ageing and aged care work in everyday life, written to support older people, families, carers and communities to better understand what is happening and how to stay involved.
The Guide has been developed as part of Bevan Eatts MLC’s work as Shadow Minister for Aged Care, informed by ongoing conversations with older Western Australians, families, frontline workers, aged care providers, and healthcare providers. It reflects what people often say they struggle with most: not knowing how the system works, who does what, or when it’s reasonable to ask questions.
This is not advice, and it is not a substitute for professional care. It is a resource to help people understand care as it is delivered in practice — and to feel more confident navigating it.
HOW THIS GUIDE HELPS.
Aged care is not just a service — it is a system. Support is delivered in different ways depending on whether someone is receiving help at home, or living in residential aged care.
The guide is organised into two linked sections that reflect how aged care is most commonly experienced:
Ageing at Home with Support
Aged Care Homes
Both sections cover the same everyday issues — such as weight loss, falls, medications, pain, behaviour or mood changes, sleep, continence, skin health, hydration and infections — but look at them through the lens of how care is provided and monitored in each setting.
This helps people understand:
common changes and incidents
how concerns are documented or reviewed
who is typically involved day to day
when and how issues are escalated
You don’t need to navigate this perfectly. People often move between these settings, and it’s common to read across both sections.
