Dementia Australia has released a series of new multilingual dementia help sheets translated into 10 languages for people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities throughout Australia.
The help sheets have been designed to raise awareness of dementia, and to improve dementia literacy, support, and care, for people living with dementia, their families, carers and friends from CALD backgrounds.
Dementia Australia CEO Maree McCabe said that the help sheets had been translated in Cantonese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Mandarin, Nepalese, Punjabi, Tagalog, Arabic and Thai.
"We are really pleased that we have been able to translate two of our most popular help sheets, "Tips for Visiting" and "Tips for Friends" from English. We are committed to making our services and programs accessible to people from CALD backgrounds," Ms McCabe said.
"Our website contains help sheets on a variety of dementia topics that are available for free to download in 43 languages."
There are an estimated 425,000 Australian’s living with dementia. Without a significant medical break-through, the number of people living with dementia is expected to increase to more than 1.1 million by 2056[1].
Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse nations, with recent data projections demonstrating that migrant communities are ageing at a significantly faster rate than the general population. By 2020 it is projected that around 30 per cent of the population aged 65 years and above will be from CALD backgrounds [2].
"The release of these help sheets will assist people from non-English speaking backgrounds living with dementia, their carers, families and friends navigate complex conversations about dementia in their own languages, incorporating their different cultural customs, traditions and beliefs," Ms McCabe said.
"Our website also provides also access to information for clinical and allied health professionals for when they are planning dementia screening or assessment of people from CALD backgrounds. These resources can be shared among individuals in CALD communities and will ensure they receive advice and support about dementia in their first language.
"I encourage people to utilise these free translated resources, they are available online at www.dementia.org.au/languages". ---
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