MARK COLVIN: Young Australians who are living in nursing homes because of serious injury or illness are overjoyed that COAG has decided to look at their situation. There are more than 6,000 people under 65 who live in aged care facilities. It makes many depressed and isolated from people their own age.

The South Australian Opposition has accused the State Government of supporting a plan which could force the closure of aged care beds in several Riverland hospitals.

On the “Aged Care Funding Instrument” proposed by the Commonwealth Department of Health & Aged Care.

The federal government has detailed plans to pump $150 million into training aged-care workers to cope with Australia's ageing population.

Keeping older Australians at home and out of nursing homes, and encouraging people to work until at least 65 were the ways to deal with an ageing population, Treasurer Peter Costello has said.

AGED care providers are struggling to stave off financial crisis, an Albury nursing home manager said yesterday.

The Federal Government wants more aged-care patients to be treated at home as a way of achieving long-term savings in public hospitals.

NSW aged care nurses on Tuesday won an immediate six per cent pay rise, with another six per cent to be paid next year.

In a converted whitewashed hospital ward, its wide corridors still echoing the footfall of nurses from another era, a quiet revolution in aged care is taking shape.

Forget the retirement home - stay put and grow old gracefully in your own home. That's the philosophy behind new trends in care for the elderly, but does it make sense? Ruth Laugesen investigates.