Benetas Develops PAT: Tackling Frailty and Giving Older Australians Control of their Ageing Journey

A $1.2m research project conducted by Benetas in conjunction with Monash University in 2018, titled ‘Frailty in Community Dwelling Older People’, found that frailty among people over the age of 60 is in fact a strong indicator of a person’s risk of a serious health decline.

It further found that one in two older Australians dwelling at home are at risk of a minor health issue triggering a serious health decline. With the right interventions in place however, older Australians can improve their physical resilience, functional capacity and ability to maintain their independence for longer.

Positive Ageing Tool (PAT)
Aged care provider, Benetas, developed a user-friendly online Positive Ageing Tool (PAT) with tailored resources to ensure that older Australians are informed and in control of their ageing journey. The online tool provides responders with a tailored letter to take to their GP to follow their frailty levels, and a pack to assist them to maintain wellness and improve reablement.

PAT’s two-minute health check helps people detect and prevent early signs of frailty. There is a personalised and easy-to-navigate online questionnaire made up of five questions based on extensive clinical research, plus a range of supporting content including blogs and videos on exercise, recipes, medication, sleeping and more.

On the results page, the user is given the opportunity to download a comprehensive report complete with tailored advice and resources based on their frailty outcome, including a letter to take to their GP, outlining their results and suggested various health tests to undertake.

The tool is designed to also engage younger people and family members (aged 30-55) who are active in making aged care decisions for their older family members, and supporting them through their ageing journey.

PAT was developed using information from an evidence-based assessment to help older Australians pre-emptively detect early stages of frailty and take important preventive steps. Tested on over 3,000 older people, it was deemed clinically accurate.

Promotion
Benetas wanted the Positive Ageing Tool to be relatable, and therefore assigned a character, named ‘Pat’ in the form of an avatar, bringing Pat to life. A multi-faceted multimedia digital campaign was developed, tested and optimised. In order to reach their target audiences and get people to engage with PAT, they developed a digital campaign.

Messages were adapted depending on the media chosen, the goal of the media, and the audience group. Appropriate metrics were assigned to each media channel to allow us to manage progress. Throughout the campaign, they adapted creative variations depending on the results and analysed and optimised to reach goals specific to the media.

Early intervention
PAT enables Benetas to reach people from as early as 60 to help them identify the early onset of frailty, and tackle it with expert advice and right interventions in place.

This tool and its delivery through a multi-channel public awareness campaign, is about reimagining how aged care providers expand their role beyond direct care, and support older Australians to stay independent for longer.

More information
www.benetas.com.au/pat

Benetas was Winner of the innovAGEING Realising Wellness and Reablement Award 2020.