Staff and family attitudes to fences as a means of detaining people with dementia in residential aged care settings: The tension between physical and emotional safety

This study investigates staff and family attitudes towards the use of the fences that surround many aged care facilities in Australia, in the context of indefinite detention of people with dementia. This indefinite detention has been described in a report from an Australian Senate Inquiry as a significant problem within the aged care context, which is often informal, unregulated and unlawful. Five focus groups comprising direct care workers, family members, nurse unit managers and facility managers discussed the reasons for and their attitudes towards fences. The results show a tension between the provision of physical and emotional safety. This is to say that even while it is illegal to detain people with dementia against their will, and even while participants understood the negative impact of fences on the well-being and emotional safety of people with dementia, they accepted and supported the presence of perimeter fences because they provided the perception that fences kept people with dementia physically safe. This has implications for redressing the balance between physical and emotional safety in policy and practice.