The daughter of a woman with dementia who was handcuffed in a Sydney aged care home is demanding more accountability from police over instances of force being used against residents.
Emma Grahame's mother, Rachel Grahame, was forcibly handcuffed by six officers late at night at the St Basil's aged care home in Randwick in October 2020, after she took a lanyard and an electronic device from a desk.
Ms Grahame said the tasering of 95-year-old Clare Nowland in Cooma this week prompted her to release the vision of her mother's incident.
Ms Nowland, who also lives with dementia, is in a critical but stable condition in hospital, as investigations into the incident by the state's homicide squad are continuing.
Police body-camera footage shows the-then 81-year-old Rachel howling in distress as the handcuffs dig into her arms. She can be heard screaming, "oh, help", and calls one of the officers a "big bully".
She weighed 45 kilograms at the time.
"I'm sure that the family of Clare Nowland is feeling the same way, that they've done their best to try and keep her safe and it's been the opposite of that," Ms Grahame said.
She said this latest incident showed that police weren't learning from past mistakes.
The Grahame family received a compensation payment from NSW Police in November 2021, but Emma claimed they didn't take responsibility.
"We never got an apology, we never got any acknowledgement that they had done anything wrong," she said.
On Sunday, a police spokesperson told the ABC it would be inappropriate to comment because the civil matter had been settled.
Ms Grahame said it was disappointing that Police Commissioner Karen Webb told the media on the weekend that she wouldn't watch the footage.
"Senior police ought to expose themselves to it because they need to feel this.
"They need to feel the effect of what their staff are doing to people who can't defend themselves."
The incidents, according to Ms Grahame, highlight the need for health professionals to respond to frail aged care residents with dementia, and not police.
"Why isn't there some psychiatric team that can come and help when a situation is difficult?
"If the police are called, surely they're quite within their rights to say, 'this looks like a health situation so we'll stand here and make sure no one's getting hurt, but you need to deal with this'."
Commissioner Webb said the police force would be open to improving its approach.
"If, in the fullness of these investigations, and any other matter, that we come to learn that we need to better equip our offices to deal with dementia patients then we will do so but it's not something we come across regularly," she said.
The Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN) said in a statement on Sunday that there were "huge gaps" in aged care staff training around dementia.
"We know that people with dementia require a certain level of care to ensure they are looked after safely and compassionately," OPAN chief executive Craig Gear said.
"Unfortunately, we also know there is a huge skills gap across the country between aged care workers who are trained to care for dementia patients, and those who are not."
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said he was open to changes in how the sector deals with these matters.
"If there are lessons to be learned, particularly for health and how we can respond to these types of incidents through a health perspective, then of course I will stand ready to do so," Mr Park said.
A spokesperson for Commonwealth Aged Care Minister Anika Wells said there was training and resources available for aged care staff looking after residents with dementia.
The spokesperson also said facilities were required to report incidents involving a range of issues, including unreasonable use of force and restrictive practices.
