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Once you have come to terms that you and your household or community can no longer take care of your loved one, the first step is to get the general assessment. This is when an agent, you may get lucky and this agent has a medical background, comes to your house and does an overview assessment of your loved one’s needs. The assessment will determine whether you qualify for government-funded at-home care or if you need to start looking for a long-term care (LTC) facility.
It should be noted that there is a very real state of urgency on this matter. If you are considering to start searching for a long-term care facility/nursing home, start the process immediately. The waiting lists for desirable homes can be as long as eight years, so you will need to put your name down once you recognize that you will need such services. If your loved one is hospitalized, there is a chance that they will be put on an urgent care list, which makes this process significantly shorter, but even this can result in waiting over a year for a long-term care facility that meets your requirements and preferences. If you wait or delay this, the patient may be assigned to a long-term care facility that is both geographically far away and one that may not be the best when it comes to your goals and treatment plans.
The agent providing the general assessment will go over the patient’s:
- The medical history
- Medications
- History of falls (usually severe falls are what starts this process)
- Equipment needs (followed up with a visit of an Occupational Therapist if needed)
- Physiotherapy needs (followed up with a Physiotherapist if needed)
- Brief cognitive assessment (could lead to an appointment with a Neurologist)
After this, you will be assigned a case manager/community coordinator, and a home care plan will be made. This plan will outline the services you need and will be revisited every few months or when there is a significant change to your loved one’s health, thus requiring an alteration to your home care plan.
These services include the items below and much more:
- Nursing services (including wound care specialists)
- Personal Support Workers (PSW’s)
- Physiotherapy
- Occupational Therapy
- Social Work
If you suspect that your loved one is suffering from early dementia, get a proper assessment done by a neurologist as fast as possible. I advise you to do so because most neurologists do not offer assessments on-site outside of their offices. Due to degrading mobility or other issues, such as an unexpected pandemic, not having a proper neurological assessment will act as a continuous hurdle during the patient’s care. This can be due to new nurses and PSWs not treating the patient correctly, for they are not able to alter their treatment if dementia is not in the file. Furthermore, a neurologist is best equipped to diagnose other illnesses that may be passing off symptoms that we, as laypeople, attribute to dementia.