As a disability support worker, you grow to better understand your participants’ individual needs. Whether they live largely independently or require a little extra assistance, each individual is different and, consequently, there are different roles for each participant.

However, there are some general top tips that you, the carer, can incorporate to optimise your awesome service. It may be that your participant requires one, a couple, or none of these bits of advice, but they are here as a references if you need them:

Help them to live independently

 When it comes to the best disability home care Wollongong has, it is important to help your participant live as independently as possible. An unfortunate drawback for participants in this service is that they may sometimes feel unempowered, especially if the carer works too hard to do everything for them.

As such, we promote helping your participants live as independently as possible wherever they see fit. This may include things like facilitating their financial matters, helping them organise social catch ups without assistance, go do their own grocery shopping – wherever they want to live independently in a suitable manner is always a good thing for your participant’s self-confidence!

Be sure to ask before giving assistance

Coming back to the last point, one of the key ways to ensure you’re not running the risk of becoming overbearing is to ask your participant if they need any assistance before offering it. It may be that they feel and are perfectly capable of handling a particular role by themselves, so it’s always a good idea to ensure they actually require any assistance before stepping in!

Encourage social events

Wollongong is a city that is replete with fun social events in which to partake. Whether it’s in the arts, community activities, sports or something completely different, our city is one that has plenty going on at all times of the year.

If your participant would like to try something new – like a new hobby or social event – then feel free to assist them in making this happen! Whether that means helping them find and sign up for a new activity, assisting them to the event or helping them practise in their own time, there are plenty of ways you can help your participant start their journey to a new and rewarding venture!

Help them around the home

It can be that a person living with a disability has a difficult time completing a certain role around the house. Whether that is cooking a meal or a particular cleaning duty, there can be certain limitations that inhibit the individual from completing a particular task.

As such, one of your primary roles as a caregiver is to provide assistance with such duties around the home. Whether it is tackling the gardening, making a particular meal or assisting in cleaning duties, there may be some particular roles that require a little extra assistance.

Treat your participant as you would anyone else!

Your role is primarily to offer assistance where suitable, as such you don’t need to treat your participant any differently than you would other people! There is no need to be patronising or overly-sympathetic in this role: it’s just about helping your participant get by wherever they may need some assistance.

These are five simple tips to follow when providing care for your participant. Feel free to use them as a reference if you ever feel the need!

Human life expectancy has reached an all-time high with the support of modern treatments and medicines to overcome many health challenges. A recent resource developed by Avantor walks you through a journey of life sciences and the key developments that helped us get to where we are today. Here are six critical developments that have pushed our healthcare industry into the modern era.

1909: The First Pharmaceutical Treatment

The medical industry we had one hundred years ago pales compared to today’s industry. The early medical discoveries of the 1900s helped lay tremendous foundational work for the development of today’s advanced medical field. One of the first discoveries that ushered in a new era of medical advancements was the development of the first pharmaceutical treatment designed for Syphilis. Syphilis is a disabling sexually transmitted disease that could be fatal if left untreated. Paul Ehrlich developed this cure accidentally while attempting to discover a drug that could kill germs upon entering the body.

1918: The Spanish Flu

The widespread Spanish Flu set the groundwork for future pandemics but also showed us how little we know about the disease and how to combat viruses. This was the first outbreak that mandated a widespread ‘lockdown’ to combat the spread of the disease and saw people wearing masks in public as it was made illegal to spit, cough, or sneeze in public. The Spanish Flu outbreak pushed the medical world towards rapid innovation as researchers worldwide attempted to fight the disease and began experimenting with new treatments and vaccines.

1928: Penicillin

The discovery of penicillin was integral for the future of healthcare. Penicillin was accidentally discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming when he left Petri dishes out that grew mold, which fought certain bacteria within the dishes. The development of penicillin is essential in our fight against infectious diseases. Penicillin wasn’t mass-produced until the 1940s.

1952: Cardiovascular Pacemaker

The mid-1900s saw many improvements in previously discovered treatments and the development of more in-depth research and care methods. Creating the first cardiovascular pacemaker was a crucial moment in our healthcare history. This was one of many developments in medical engineering during this period. The pacemaker could be implanted and run automatically without needing an out-of-body hand crank to power up the machine. Pacemakers remain an essential part of cardiovascular care and treatments today.

2000s Stem Cell Research

Stem cells have been used in medical research since the 1980s, but it wasn’t till the early 2000s that they began being used in treatments. Stem cells can be used in regenerative medicine to heal previously irreparably damaged cells and can even be used in cancer treatments. Stem cell research has the potential to help us cure many degenerative diseases and much more.

2008: mRNA Vaccines

The development of mRNA vaccines is profound in the life sciences. Messenger RNA can be deployed to help program the body’s immune system to fight certain diseases. This technology was first used in 20008 to treat melanoma patients. Avantor notes that the vaccine method was “so successful in fighting a tricky disease like cancer that we will see this advancement in vaccine technology used again, over a decade later.” The COVID-19 pandemic presented a new opportunity for mRNA technology to develop new vaccines rapidly.

The modern healthcare system would not be what it is today without these critical developments in the life sciences. Via Avantor, you may learn about many more significant events in the history of the life sciences as well as individuals like Anne McLaren who made significant contributions to science in a variety of ways. Understanding the history of our healthcare system and the timeline of discoveries can help you make informed decisions about your health and gain insight into the research currently being developed within the healthcare industry.

 It’s a Saturday: sun’s out, the mood is pleasant and you’ve just gone out to your mate’s place for an afternoon barbie and a beer. But, oof, you got too stuck into that bowl of kalamatas and chomped down on the pit, leaving your tooth looking like you just took a hard knock on the footy field.

Right now you’re probably thinking, “seriously, do I have to wait until Monday to fix this pain?” Well, the answer is a straight no! You do not have to wait until the working week to fix that pain and take restorative dental measures.

Because you can visit the Saturday dentist, and there are a whole range of benefits for doing so:

1. Reduce the pain on the day

 The dental industry has come a long way in recent years, so much so that there is now a weekend dentist working around the clock to ensure any unfortunate leisure time tooth problems with root canal are dealt with immediately! It can be really unpleasant hurting a tooth, even more so after hours or on the weekend, not knowing when you will be able to deal with the problem.

Now you can: simply take yourself down to the Saturday dental clinic and they will provide the same emergency treatment than if it were to happen during work hours. You no longer have to wait around in agonising pain – you can deal with the problem now.

2. Provide restorative treatment

Your tooth may be at risk of deteriorating further or even being lost. Unfortunately, the risk of this happening increases as the hours tick on, so the last thing you want is to be sitting around at home, in pain, and wondering if you’re going to lose a tooth first thing Monday morning.

Now, you can head straight to the emergency public dental clinic, where the professional can provide potentially tooth-saving treatment. It’s imperative that people are aware of this important service as you know longer have to sit around wondering if you are going to lose a tooth – you can have a much greater chance of saving it on the same day!

3. It could help maintain your dental aesthetic

 As we said, this problem only exacerbates with time, and seeing your emergency dentist could be the difference between being happy with your smile and wondering about veneers down the track. So, one of the key benefits of seeing an emergency professional is the hope of restoring the tooth’s aesthetic before it can have a chance to fall out or become more cracked.

Regardless of the problem there is a chance your professional can save the tooth or restore it from the original damage – it’s the best service for saving your dental aesthetic!

4. It helps maintain dental health

Because any time you damage a tooth your dental health diminishes and, unfortunately, can continue to worsen as time goes on. The best thing to do is to immediately handle the problem, taking yourself down to the emergency dentist to ensure that they can do the work to help maintain your dental health.

Dental problems can lead to a host of other issues that affect our general health, so this is a valuable service that shouldn’t be overlooked by anyone who has hurt their tooth carving up the d-floor on a night out or playing weekend sport – it could be the difference between saving the tooth or seeing it gone come Sunday morning!