List of impairments and thresholds required to satisfy the definition of Carer for the purposes of the Australian Migrations Regulations and the subclass 116 and 836 Carer Visas.
Impairment Thresholds for Care Recipients of Carer Visa Holders
To satisfy the Australian Migration Regulation’s criteria for what constitutes a carer, the person for whom you are caring must meet at least one of the below listed thresholds for requiring care.
| Criteria | Thresholds |
|---|---|
| 1) There is an extreme functional impact on activities requiring physical exertion or stamina. | (1) The person: (a) is unable to perform activities requiring physical exertion or stamina; or (b) experiences symptoms such as extreme shortness of breath, extreme fatigue or pain when performing any activities requiring physical exertion or stamina and, due to these symptoms, the person is unable to move around inside the home without assistance; or (c) is unable to undertake personal care activities and needs assistance to use the bathroom or is reliant on bed baths or using wet wipes. Such activities result in severe fatigue; or (d) is bedbound. Note: this impairment rating level includes people who require Oxygen treatment. Example: requiring the use of an Oxygen concentrator during the day or to move around. |
| 2) There is an extreme functional impact on activities using upper limbs. | (1) The person has no function in both of their upper limbs or the person has no upper limbs. |
| 3) There is an extreme functional impact on activities using lower limbs. | (1) The person is unable to mobilise independently. |
| 4) There is an extreme functional impact on activities involving spinal function. | (1) The person cannot perform activities involving spinal function. |
| 5) There is an extreme functional impact on activities involving mental health function. | (1) The person has extreme difficulties with at least 4 of the following: (a) self-care and independent living; Example 1: the person requires continual support with daily activities and self-care. Example 2: the person is unable to live on their own and lives with family or in a supported residential facility or similar, or in a secure facility. (b) social/recreational activities and interpersonal relationships; Example: the person has extreme difficulty interacting with other people and is socially isolated. (c) travel and accessing the community; Example: the person is unable to travel away from their own residence without a support person. (d) concentration and task completion; Example 1: the person has extreme difficulty in concentrating on or following along with any productive task for more than a few minutes. Example 2: the person has extreme difficulty in completing tasks or following instructions. (e) behaviour, planning and decision-making; Example 1: the person has extremely disturbed behaviour which may include self-harm, suicide attempts, unprovoked aggression towards others or manic excitement. Example 2: the person’s judgement, decision-making, planning and organisation functions are severely disturbed. (f) work/training capacity. Example: the person is unable to attend work, education or training sessions other than for short periods of time due to ongoing mental illness. |
| 6) There is an extreme functional impact from alcohol, drug or other harmful substance use. | (1) As a result of a person’s substance use disorder, they experience at least 3 of the following: (a) extreme difficulties in maintaining personal care, hygiene, nutrition and general health; Example: the person has extreme difficulties undertaking any self-care activities as a result of their substance use. (b) extreme physical or cognitive impairment resulting from chronic and ongoing use of a substance; Example: the person has sustained irreparable damage to their physical health, such as failure of the liver or other organs, or brain injury with severely impaired cognitive function as a result of their substance use. (c) extreme difficulties with most aspects of relationships, social interaction and community involvement; Example: the person is socially isolated, unless they are interacting with people related to their substance use. (d) extreme difficulties in withdrawing from or avoiding harmful use of a substance and unable to attend work or activities Example: the person is unable to withdraw from a substance due to their dependence on the substance. |
| 7) There is an extreme functional impact resulting from a neurological or cognitive condition. | (1) The person requires continual interactive assistance and supervision and has extreme difficulties in at least 2 of the following: (a) memory; Example 1: the person requires constant prompts and reminders to remember routine tasks, familiar people and places and may get lost even in familiar places if not accompanied. Example 2: the person has extreme difficulty remembering events that happened earlier in the day (such as what the person ate for breakfast). (b) attention and concentration; Example: the person has extreme difficulty concentrating on any task for more than a few minutes which may be due to sensory input, including environmental stimuli from any of the senses. (c) problem solving and cognitive flexibility; Example 1: the person has extreme difficulty solving even the most basic problems (such as what to do if the kettle is empty) and needs complete assistance with problem solving. Example 2: the person has extreme difficulty coping with changes in routine, or experiences restricted behaviours resulting in extreme distress with changing focus or activities. (d) planning; Example: the person has extreme difficulty planning and organising daily activities and needs complete assistance to organise daily routine. (e) decision making; Example: the person has extreme difficulty prioritising and making simple decisions and needs substantial support from a guardian or other delegate to make decisions or give consent on the person’s behalf. (f) comprehension; Example: the person has extreme difficulty understanding even simple, single step instructions and needs assistance to complete most tasks. (g) visuo-spatial function; Example 1: the person has extreme difficulty performing even basic visuo-spatial functions, following spatial directions (such as ‘turn left at the corner’), or judging distance or depth which severely limits mobility. Example 2: the person has left or right-sided neglect, that is, they are not aware of objects, people or body parts in the left or right field of vision. This means that even though the person’s eyes can see an object, the person’s brain does not register its presence. (h) behavioural regulation; Example 1: the person has extreme difficulty controlling behaviour in a range of day to day situations and this interferes with participation in activities outside the home and requires supervision and possibly restriction to a home or institutional environment. Example 2: the person constantly demonstrates behavioural dysregulation that is extremely self-limiting and/or impactful on others, such as extreme difficulty or refusal to engage in non-preferred environments, or self-stimulatory behaviour in all environments. (i) social skills. Example: the person has extreme difficulty reading non-verbal communication (such as gestures or facial expressions), interacting with others and shows a lack of awareness of social norms and expectations. (j) self-awareness. Example: the person has very poor or no awareness of own limitations resulting infrequent and serious risks to self or others. |
| 8) There is extreme functional impact on communication in the person’s main language. | (1) Either: (a) the person: (i) has extreme difficulty understanding even simple day to-day language in familiar environments; or (ii) may understand only a few single words or simple phrases that are used on a regular basis such as ‘drink’,‘toilet’, ‘bed-time’, ‘go in the car’; or (iii) needs additional gestures, pictures, symbols or physical demonstration in order to understand what is said; or (b) at least one of the following applies: (i) the person has extreme difficulty in producing any clear speech or is unable to speak at all; or (ii) the person’s speech is difficult to understand even for family members and others who have regular contact with the person; or (iii) the person uses a limited vocabulary of words in speech; or Example: fewer than 20 words. (iv) the person is only able to indicate yes or no, pleasure or displeasure through facial expressions, head movements or hand or body gestures; or (2) The person uses alternative or augmentative communication such as sign language, technology that produces electronic speech, use of symbols to communicate, use of a note taker to communicate; and (a) the person uses a limited number of symbols such as Com pics, or pictures or photos to communicate basic needs and feelings; or (b) the person needs to use an electronic communication device to communicate with others but has difficulty using this and is very slow in preparing communications; or (c) the person is unable to speak or use an electronic communication device and uses a note taker to communicate with others. |
| 9) There is an extreme impact on adaptive functioning. | (1) At least one of the following applies: (a) The person is assessed as having a score of adaptive behaviour of50 or less on an adaptive behaviour scale; or (b) The person is assessed as being within the percentile rank of less than 0.1 on a standardised assessment of adaptive behaviour. |
| 10) There is an extreme functional impact: symptoms associated with a digestive or reproductive system condition. | (1) At least 2 of the following apply to the person: (a) the person’s attention and concentration at a task are continually interrupted or reduced by chronic pain or other symptoms or care needs associated with the digestive or reproductive system condition (such that pain or other symptoms are present all or most of the time); (b) the person is unable to sustain work activity or other tasks for more than one hour without a break due to symptoms of the digestive or reproductive system condition; (c) the person has extreme difficulty travelling to or being in social environments due to symptoms or management of the gastrointestinal or reproductive system functions, causing extreme disruption to daily activities and rarely engages in activities outside of the home; (d) the person is rarely able to attend work, education or training activities due to the digestive or reproductive system condition. |
| 11) There is an extreme functional impact on activities involving hearing function or other functions of the ear. | (1) The person: (a) is unable to hear anything at all; and (b) has limited or no ability to understand a recognised sign language, such as Auslan, lip reading, or other non-verbal communication methods, such as written notes; and (c) is unable to sustain an upright posture due to extreme difficulty with balance. |
| 12) There is an extreme functional impact on activities involving visual function. | (1) The person is not considered permanently blind and, due to extreme functional impact on vision, the person: (a) needs assistance to move around even in familiar environments; and (b) needs assistance to perform most day-to-day activities. |
| 13) There is an extreme functional impact on maintenance of continence of the bladder or bowel. | (1) The person has extreme difficulty travelling to or being in social environments due to symptoms or management of the condition, causing extreme disruption to daily activities and rarely engages in activities outside of the home, and at least (2), (3) or (4) applies. Bladder (2) In respect of continence of the bladder the person has no control of bladder emptying and is always incontinent of urine. Bowel (3) In respect of continence of the bowel the person has no control of bowel emptying and is always incontinent of faeces. Continence aids (4) The person is unable to independently manage any aspects of continence aids. |
| 14) There is an extreme functional impact on activities involving functions of the skin. | (1) The person has to make major modifications to most daily activities or is unable to perform most daily activities, requires repeated assistance throughout the day and could not attend a work, education or training session for a continuous period of at least 3 hours as at least one of the following applies: (a) the person has such extensive damage or scarring of their skin that they are unable to perform most daily activities without extreme difficulty or discomfort; (b) the person requires continual application or wearing of medically prescribed creams or dressings to most or all of the skin on the body; (c) the person has extreme reactions to normal exposure to sunlight or skin contact with routine substances found in most households, requiring repeated urgent medical treatment and frequent hospitalisation. |
| 15) There is an extreme functional impact from loss of consciousness or altered state of consciousness. | (1) The person: (a) either: (i) has frequent episodes of involuntary loss of consciousness: (A) which occur at least once each week; and (B) which may require the person to receive first aid measures emergency medication or hospitalisation; or (ii) has frequent episodes of altered state of consciousness: (A) which occur most days; and (B) during which the person’s functional abilities are affected during these episodes, such as they remain standing or sitting but is unaware of their surroundings or actions during the episode; and (b) is unable to perform most of their usual activities of daily living between episodes; and (c) cannot obtain a driver’s licence on medical grounds and has other safety-related restrictions on activities; and (d) is not able to attend work, education or training activities at all. |