JCU partnership strengthens residential aged care in North Queensland
A James Cook University partnership helping tackle frailty in aged care is delivering major benefits for older Australians while creating new career pathways for regional students.
The collaboration between JCU and Townsville-based aged care provider The Good Shepherd Home (TGSH) has helped deliver more than 3000 frailty and exercise services to aged care residents over the past five years, all while giving students hands-on industry experience in a rapidly growing healthcare field.
These services are helping aged care residents get stronger through high-intensity, progressive resistance and balance exercise programs. Residents are being challenged in a supported environment to strive for new strength and functional goals.
The initiative was developed through JCU student placements and industry-led training and originally supported the implementation of the FRIEND (Frailty Reduction via Implementation of Exercise, Nutritional support and Deprescribing) study between JCU, University of Sydney and the home.
It was then expanded beyond the project due to its success and has since contributed to the employment of seven JCU Exercise Physiology graduates in residential aged care facilities, including three at TGSH.
“I first started at the Good Shepherd Home as a placement student during my master’s in clinical exercise physiology,” said Taylor Malone, a recent JCU graduate who is now working as a full‑time exercise physiologist at TGSH.
“Aged care is one of those niche parts of the degree where you don’t really appreciate the benefits until you’re actually in it. Having the chance to come to the Good Shepherd Home and see what was available in the aged care space really opened my eyes to the opportunity.
“It was great coming back and seeing all the residents I’d worked with on placement, and our allied health assistants were really excited for me to return.
“We have a 92‑year‑old whose one‑repetition max on the leg press far exceeds double his body weight, so he’s doing pretty well for 92!”
Dr Michael Inskip, a JCU senior lecturer and clinical educator in exercise physiology, said the partnership is helping address workforce shortages in aged care while improving quality of life for residents through evidence-based frailty care programs.
“We were able to provide students authentic exposure to residential aged care, but also in the process contribute to the aged care workforce needed to be able to run evidence-based exercise services and research,” he said.
“We're the only program in Australia that would have 100 per cent of their exercise physiology students go through residential aged care as part of their curriculum and placement exposure and we’re very proud of that.”
"Most treatments in aged care are palliative in nature whereas we go in there and we actually go, you still have the capacity to get strong and improve wellbeing, you're going to lift more than you've ever lifted in your life.
"It's a very dignifying intervention, because you're assuming the best in them, you're actually giving them a chance to push hard and get stronger and you and the family see changes in their confidence and independence."
Since 2021, more than 100 JCU Exercise Science and Exercise Physiology students have completed over 2000 placement hours through the partnership, gaining practical experience and forming genuine connections working directly with older residents in residential care settings.