Are you a support worker, coordinator, or allied health professional?

You’re probably juggling many demands with minimal time and resources. You want to help your clients be active and independent, but thinking of reablement ideas can be difficult.

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What is a reablement strategy?

A reablement strategy is any action that helps improve an older person’s ability to engage in activities they find important.

You can use reablement strategies to help your clients:

• Feel safer and more confident in their everyday lives
• Improve their physical abilities, thinking skills, and emotional wellbeing
• Stay connected with their friends and family
• Actively participate in their community

These elements play a big role in supporting older people’s human right to live better for longer.

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What are the 5 core reablement strategies?

Before we focus on these individual reablement strategies, it’s important to approach them with a wellness and reablement mindset. Remember to:

• Focus on your clients’ strengths rather than their weaknesses
• Recognise your clients as the experts on themselves. Listen to their needs, goals, and include them in all decision making
• Promote your clients’ dignity and independence

By taking this approach, you’re actively supporting outcomes in Standard 1 of the Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards.

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Strategy 1: Build capacity

Exercise can be great for building abilities, but it’s not the only way. Daily activities like cooking, cleaning, and getting coffee with friends enable older people to:

• Move their bodies
• Engage their minds
• Overcome problems
• Stay connected with meaningful parts of their life

Building capacity transforms everyday moments into opportunities for independence, confidence, and personal growth.

Tips for building capacity

It’s not just age that can impact how active people are or how independent they remain. An older person may reduce their activity levels because of:

• An injury or period of illness
• Well-meaning support persons or providers who do everything for them

These experiences may cause older people to lose their confidence, feel anxious, and become less active.

In good news, these scenarios can often be avoided. That’s where building capacity comes in. You can help older people build capacity by:

• Working alongside them during tasks until they’re confident enough to do them alone
• Teaching them new skills that align with their values, such as using social media to connect with their grandchildren
• Encouraging them to improve their strength, balance, and fitness through daily activities or by referring them to other professionals for additional support

Even in older age, there are opportunities for people to improve their abilities, independence, and quality of life. Building capacity helps older people find and seize these opportunities.

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Strategy 2: Adapt the environment

Older people may find it hard to do tasks by themselves due to a less-than-ideal home environment.

Some of these options are simple and can be put into practise during regular home visits., which we’ll focus on in this resource.

More complex interventions, such as installing ramps or making structural changes, should be referred to an occupational therapist.

Tips for adapting the environment

When your clients are having difficulty with a task, ask them why. If their home environment is the issue, explore helpful adaptations.

Most people value their privacy at home and may be reluctant to make changes. When considering adjustments to their home environment, avoid words like ‘modifying’.

Use positive language and include them in the decision-making process. Here’s what this could look like in action:

• Improve lighting: ‘It must be hard to read recipes in this light. Would you consider replacing the bulb with a brighter one?’
• Rearrange storage: ‘It must be difficult to lift that heavy casserole dish out of the bottom drawer. Could we find a higher spot that will put less strain on your back?’
• Reduce mobility obstacles: ‘I can see one of the wheels on your walking frame gets caught on furniture in the living room. Is there something you would be happy to move to create more space?’

As you can see, the service provider offers suggestions and reasoning. But the client always makes the final decision. When it comes to reablement strategies, the goal is to support, not to take over.

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Strategy 3: Modify the task

Sometimes, you can make a task easier for a person by helping them change how it’s done. As a reablement strategy, this is called modifying the task. Let’s use an example to demonstrate.

Both clients could use these strategies to make carrying the kettle easier:

• Only putting enough water in the kettle for what’s needed
• Placing the kettle on a towel and sliding it across the bench
• Using a small jug to fill the kettle instead of holding it under the tap

Whether short-term or long-lasting, small changes to everyday tasks can make a big difference to a person’s independence.

Tips for modifying the task

As with all reablement strategies, don’t make too many changes at once.

Start with the task your client cares about most. Early success could motivate them to make other changes in the future.

Here are some suggestions for modifying daily activities:

• Cleaning: Don’t clean the whole house in one day. Do fewer jobs each day over a week. This is called ‘pacing’.
• Tidying: To tidy a room quickly, simply put clutter in a box or basket. You can store the items away when you have more energy.
• Cooking: Sit down to prepare food if you experience fatigue.
• Dressing: Are you finding buttons hard to manage? Try keeping shirts buttoned and slipping them on and off overhead.

Modifying the task aims to keep your client involved in the activity, not to do it for them. Even small changes can help them participate in ways that benefit their mind, body, and independence.

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Strategy 4: Recommend Assistive Technology (AT)

Tips for recommending Assistive Technology (AT)

Sometimes people are hesitant to use AT because they think it draws attention to their difficulties.

You can overcome this barrier by approaching the topic of AT carefully. Let’s use an example to demonstrate.

One of your clients is unable to stand from the car seat on his own. A handy bar could help, but he dismisses the idea. He thinks it will make him look like he can’t manage on his own.

To help him accept and feel comfortable with the handy bar, try:

• Showing him how the handy bar will help him become more independent, not less
• Explaining that the handy bar will reduce the need to ask his friends and family for help
• Offering the handy bar as a short-term solution while he rebuilds his strength through reablement

In this example, the provider focuses on the benefits of AT and its potential for temporary use while building capacity. By broaching the topic of AT in this way, you can help your clients see AT as empowering, not disabling.

Would you like to learn more about AT for everyday tasks and how to discuss options with your clients? Visit our AT Resources Hub.

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Strategy 5: Provide information

Older people have the right to make informed choices about their care. To do this, they need good information. That’s what this reablement strategy focuses on.

To keep your clients engaged in reablement, you can also share details about local exercise classes, community groups, and suggestions for assistive technology. Your clients can get personalised advice about local options by completing LiveUp‘s free Healthy Ageing Quiz.

Tips for providing information

When providing information as part of a reablement strategy, ask your clients about their information needs and their preferred ways of receiving it.

Options for sharing information include:

• Client care plan
• Conversations
• Written notes on your organisation’s letterhead, so they’re not accidentally thrown away
• Emails, text messages, or website links
• Handouts
• Webinars, podcasts, or smartphone apps

Don’t make assumptions about your clients’ digital skills. Many older people are tech-savvy!

That said, be mindful of specific needs like:

• Cognitive impairment
• English as a second language
• Vision and/or hearing impairments
• Speech and language difficulties
• Poor literacy 

The right information, delivered in the right way, can be a powerful tool for independent living. Finding what works for your clients is key to all reablement strategies.

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Next steps

* The use of the word LifeCurve^TM on this page is a Trademarked name specifically relating to the researched table of functional decline

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