Aged care has embraced dignity and person-centred care. It has paid far less attention to identity — the person's sense of who they are — and the part it plays in how people make decisions and adopt behaviours.

That is the focus of this session. Whether an older person seeks help, stays on a medication or rejects it, or accepts support at all often relates less to clinical factors and more on whether the action sits comfortably with their identity as an older person.

Things that threaten our identity tend to be resisted, while we more readily accept and adopt things that align with who we already are. Identity, in this sense, functions as a barrier or a driver of behaviour — and this is something the sector has barely begun to focus on.

The panel examines what this means in practice across three challenges the sector is contending with:

Ageing in place, and the family carers who sustain it
Delayed help-seeking, and why many people do not take their medicines as prescribed
Culturally safe, everyday care under the new Aged Care Act

Where: Online
Format: Live, moderated panel
For: Aged care providers, policymakers, researchers, and anyone interested in ageing well

Panellists

Dr Sanka Amadoru (MBBS, BMedSc, FRACP, CHIA) — Consultant Geriatrician, Aria Health / Austin Health / Bendigo Health
Mat Crompton — Co-founder, Behaviour ID
Kris White — Co-founder, Behaviour ID
Hosted and moderated by George Gouzounis, Ageing Reframed

Behaviour ID is a collaboration of independent Social and Behaviour Change consultants. They help purpose-driven organisations create lasting behavioural change by grounding it in identity delivering research, strategy, intervention design and evaluation. Website | LinkedIn

Presented by Ageing Reframed — a new national initiative by the Multicultural Communities Council of SA, driving innovation in ageing and aged care through equity by design.

Contact the host of Who we think we are: the role of identity in making decisions as we get older