Every state police forcer needs to take note of these incidents because these will ultimately involve negative publicity and a lot of money 💰 to sort out (and I’m not just referring to the costs in conducting a thorough root cause analysis/cover up). Subsequent litigation expenses plus settlements easily mean millions of dollars will be incurred.

The underlying issues (as I see it) are as follows:

Effective and specific training in communicating and negotiating with elderly people ESP those locked in the scary and confusing world of dementia. Such training needs to be conducted ASAP and needs to involve employees within both police AND aged care facilities. Such training must also involve clear reporting guidelines and how to DE ESCALATE confrontations.

Revisiting health and safety protocols by sharing PRO ACTIVE principles so as to align how confrontations are dealt with will empower those who ultimately face situations where a dementia patient is armed for whatever reason.

I’m not professionally trained but even I know this much: You can’t reach an elderly person with dementia who is armed by screaming at them/ordering them. For starters people with dementia freeze and go into panic around loud noises. I’m tired of saying this but it helps to think of babies/toddlers. Do they handle loud noises and screaming? Of course NOT! They get distressed and break down crying not knowing WTF is going on and they need GENTLE reassurance. That means no screaming and no ordering. It HAS to be friendly and NOT loud AND you need to use simple sentences AND smile as friendly as possible because dementia patients READ faces (like babies/toddlers do).

Now the elderly women in these 2 cases involve:

1. A NSW elderly dementia patient armed with a lanyard.

2. An elderly lady in QLD who was holding a steak knife (and I bet it was around lunch or dinner time too).

There is no doubt in my mind that these 2 women honestly didn’t understand what was being ordered of them. And why. Elderly people with dementia are locked in a world where items TODAY hold intrinsic value which belongs to a part of their previous lifestyle. So for example : holding a steak knife would be a normal every day thing for a woman because that’s part and parcel of cooking and that’s probably what the elderly QLD was remembering.  A lanyard may well have been a visual reminder of a Centrelink or Medicare card.

What these confused and frightened sick elderly women DON’T need is this : inept, untrained cops who turn up to exacerbate their fear and confusion by terrorising them.