The Living with Dementia Survey is out: turn it into your own carer data

The survey measured carer wellbeing, and the results are hard to ignore. Around two-thirds of carers recorded low wellbeing. Carers giving 70 hours or more of care each week reported lower wellbeing than those giving fewer hours. The strain also spilled into relationships: 47% reported deteriorating family relationships.

around two-thirds

Carers who recorded low wellbeing

nearly one-third

Carers giving more than 70 hours a week

47%

Carers reporting deteriorating family relationships

These are not soft numbers. Carer hours and a short wellbeing check are both things you can record at intake and review over time. Nearly one-third of participants spent more than 70 hours a week caring, and around half of carers gave 40 hours or more. If your carers carry a similar load, the survey tells you where the risk sits before it turns into a crisis.

You cannot compare what you do not capture. Most providers hold client records, carer contacts, referral logs and a waiting list, but they sit in separate systems and rarely line up. To mirror the survey, check that you record these fields cleanly for every client:

• Date of first contact: when the person or carer first reached your service
• Date of first service: when support actually started
• Application steps: how many forms and hand-offs sit between those two dates
• Carer hours: the hours of care given each week
• Carer wellbeing check: a short, repeatable score taken at intake and reviewed

None of these need a new system. They need agreed definitions and a place to store them. Once you have the two dates, the gap between first contact and first service is your waiting time, measured the same way for every client. That single number is where most comparisons start.

With those fields in place, a small set of tiles turns the survey into something your board can read at a glance. Four tiles do most of the work:

• Median application time: the days between first contact and first service
• Waiting-list age: how long people currently on the list have waited
• Carer-load band: the share of carers in each hours-per-week band
• Early-diagnosis share: the share diagnosed within the first year of symptoms

The last tile matters because fewer than half of Australians living with dementia receive a diagnosis within the first year of symptom onset. If you refer for assessment, tracking that share shows whether people reach you early enough to help.

You do not need all four tiles on day one. Start with median application time and carer-load band, because they map straight onto the two findings your funder will raise: 49% of carers struggled with applications, and nearly one-third carry more than 70 hours a week. Get those two right, and you can answer the comparison question with your own data instead of anecdote. Bring your intake and carer data to CareView at https://meritvision.com.au/subs-services/careview and we will stand up the first tiles that show how your service compares.

1. AIHW: Dementia data and the Living with Dementia Survey (accessed 2026-09-21)
2. Mirage News: AIHW data, carers overwhelmed (accessed 2026-09-21)