Facilities with a Special Dementia Accommodation - Assignment Example

SOCIOLOGY ASSIGNMENT by Student’s Name Course Code + Name Professor Date About the Agency Milpara is an aged care agency, which belongs to the Aged Care Housing (ACH) Group in Australia. The agency only accepts old persons who have basic self-management capabilities. Only 30 people live in the agency and most of them are over 70 years. It advocates for positive lifestyle and offer numerous activities. The aged care services offered by the agency are flexible and supported by experience and multidisciplinary employees who offer care for a large number of residents needs with respect and dignity. The level of care needed by every resident is assessed before and upon entry into the care facility and then monitored on a continuous basis. The agency services include high quality housing, which offers low maintenance, and secure living for the older people in heritage homes and independent living units; residential care; care in the community program for the elderly with dementia and in-home care services; therapy services bringing lifestyle and physical rehabilitation. In addition, respite programs, health and nursing services, stay at home modification services, veteran services, and club and social link services. The agency caters for old people that require various levels of care and it offers a safe, secure and supportive setting for individuals through a number of accommodation including high and low care residential properties, special purpose dementia units and independent living units. The agency services offers caring and quality environments, which support the resident choice and promote their quality of life. The low care facilities are for individuals who require help with the daily living activities such as cleaning, laundry, dressing, showering, managing medication, and maintaining participation in social activities and lifestyle of choice. The facility enables access to outdoor gardens and outdoor seating areas and includes areas for entertaining family and friends. The agency helps individuals with activities of daily living. Both high and low care services offer care to support the special needs of individuals suffering from dementia. Its focus is on individual care to offer the best health outcomes and lifestyle for every resident. Ethical Reflection Caring for the elderly calls for not only attention but also reflection (Crawford & Walker 2004). There is need for moral progress in caring for the old people-they need time, attention as well as interest from the persons around them. Motives and values usually serve a key function in ensuring the mental, physical and social well being of the elderly, especially when the objective is to keep them active (Asquith, Clark & Waterhouse 2005). To offer the highest level of care, the whole caregiving team in Milpara forms a partnership with the best interests of the elderly as their focal point whilst offering appropriate and loving care to improve their happiness, quality of life and quality of care in the latter days of their lives. For Milpara, ethics has to do with the way the elderly wish to be treated and allowed to make their own decision. It is about doing the right thing even when no one is looking. The social worker is alert to and circumvents conflicts of interest, which interferes with exercise of impartial judgment and professional discretion. The elderly are informed when conflict arises and reasonable steps are taken to solve the issue in a way that makes their interest primary and protect their interests to the greatest extent possible. Confidentiality is also an important factor in the elderly care. The caregivers owe a duty of confidentiality to the elderly in regard to the confidential information they obtain about them. They do not also use the information for their personal benefit in such a manner that is adverse to the elderly. Milpara has well-crafted and extensive instructions on respecting the elderly privacy, seeking only confidential information, which is important in providing services, maintaining the confidentiality of all such information, as well as divulging it only with appropriate elderly consent or with the legal agents’ authorization. The eldercare provides in Milpara have the duty of focusing on the elderly needs, both present and future and their needs. All the time their interests are taken into consideration. The best interest of the elderly are weighed in heavily in all decision-making particularly when they are not able to think clearly about the decision and the resulting consequence or express clearly about them. When appropriate, all the professionals in Milpara offer usually maintain an “elder-centered” approach to the elderly persons that they assist every day. Milpara providers owe the elderly the duty of respecting their autonomy. Autonomy entails liberty-independence from controlling influences as well as the ability for independent decision making as well as intentional action. Autonomy is involved in the elderly agreeing on the courses of actions proposed by the caregivers. Lothian and Philip (2001) argued that giving the elderly and their care providers enough information for them to make well-versed decisions regarding their care further enhances their autonomy. Autonomy also promotes the well-being and health of the elderly (Andresen & Puggaard 2008) With the ability to comprehend the communicated information, the elderly make decisions hence exercising their autonomy. In cases where the elderly are not able to understand their options and to make good decisions, autonomy does not exist and is exercised through family members and legal and moral agents. The providers also embrace the beneficence principle (doing good; active kindness or goodness; charity) and this makes a great difference in the quality of life enjoyed by the elderly. All types of quality care are important to the elderly life quality as well as the decline rate in their happiness and functionality. In Milpara, the caregivers also respect the inherent worth and dignity of the elderly. The social workers treat every person in a respectful and caring manner, mindful of the individual differences as well as the ethnic and cultural diversity. They also promote the socially responsible self-determination of the elderly and they seek to improve their ability and opportunity to change and to address their own needs, which is very important (Arenson, Busby-Whitehead & Brummel-Smith et al. 2009). They also practice the principle of accountability or fidelity-they are loyal to the elder and assume responsibility for the quality and nature of the case the elder requires and receives. The social worker main responsibility is to promote the elderly well-being. In all decisions and matters affecting the life of the elderly, the main concern of the care providers and the objective that they each strive to attain of the sanctity, quality and well-being of the elder’s life. Agency Case Notes Case 1: John Lennox is a 81 year old man in Milpara. He is physically fit, however suffered from dementia; this affected his ability to carry out daily living activities seriously, resulting in his placement in Milpara. John was reliant on his adult daughter until she died in a road accident and hence had no one else to take case of him. John’s care plan is very dynamic. According to Tibbs (2001, p. 67) “Experience teaches us, however, that in the case of the person with dementia, situations can change very quickly…One is the progressive nature of the dementia, which means that changes in the person’s behaviour continue to occur”. The other is that the carers also live in a situation of life change. Life for them becomes a long series of little losses, of change after change. The care plan needs to be a living, dynamic document.” John condition is deteriorating over time and hence the need to adapt his lifestyle in the agency to accommodate the changes. Case II: Mary Wassex is a 79 year old woman in Milpara. She has been very social since she joined the agency however for the last 2 weeks she has lost pleasure and interest in all activities. She suffers from insomnia, loss of energy and fatigue almost every day and has also lost a few kilograms. She has portrayed feelings of worthlessness and inappropriate and excessive guilt. It seems that she is suffering from a major depressive disorder. Depressed mood and anxiety are the predominant indicator that Mary is suffering from depression. The social workers can normally link the adjustment condition to a depressed mood to an intricate occurrence in the life on an older person who has normally circumvented major depressions in middle and early adulthood (Richardson & Barusch 2006; Baldwin & Birtwistle 2002). Case III: Kim Marshal is a 87-year-old man who suffered a hip fracture six months ago and underwent a replacement followed by months of physical therapy. He has showed significant improvements and can comfortably walk without a limp. He has also shown increased mobility or ability to move especially walking as well as increased independence and can dress and wash and use the toilet without any assistance. A Case Study Joseph Coleman is one of the residents in Milpara. He suffered a stroke three years and consequently suffered from loss of strength and short-term memory coupled with balance problem which caused him to fall regularly. Initially Joseph’s wife was able to care for him until she sadly passed two years ago after suffering from cancer. Independent living was impractical as Joseph health was declining. Two years later, he was placed in Milpara after undergoing extensive treatment and therapy. Currently, Joseph health has significantly improved and he is contented with living in Milpara. Learning log A lot of contextual, individual, and collective influences work together to affect individual propensity to cope There is need for awareness of the social and historical context of older people lives and the way it affects their coping in the agency Social work with the elderly cannot be taken to be helpful unless older persons themselves are contented with it. The elderly should be respected and listened to as individuals. Care for the elderly is more useful when the projected outcomes are recognized at the initial stage when the elderly person is received in Milpara and built into care planning Old persons have to be directly involved in the process, with outcomes founded on their priorities and wishes to the greatest extent possible. The elderly services prefer services that support them in varied facets of their lives and not only the relationship and personal care requirements They value low-level preventive services Helpful interventions for older persons should concentrate on rigorous care management for those with rapidly changing, irregular, and/or complex needs. Demands for managing budgets as well as establishing eligibility should not reduce the ability of engaging with older persons and apply the full range of their skills in a holistic manner There is great scope for a proactive and positive approach for working with older persons, for instance through promoting the capacity and strengths of the individuals and assisting them restructure networks and confidence after change or loss. Anti-ageism is an important aspect, whereas issues of ethnicity, class, race, as well as gender should be taken into consideration There is need for a whole system perspective, engaging with the elderly persons life story, supporting families and individuals through problems relating to transition or loss. There is need to value and consider the family carer involvement, recognizing that the support of the carer can avert more needs occurring (Jones, Ridely & Robson, 2001) Care providers have to work innovatively with risk. They require fine tuned skills for achieving the correct balance between promoting independence and autonomy for the elderly persons whilst simultaneously ensuring that the vulnerable older persons have enough protection. Critical Incident John Mayer is one of the residents in Milpara. The social workers found John Mayer collapsed on the floor in his home. His family had completely refused to release him to be taken care of in the agency. The social workers had investigated the household five times over the last three years and missed numerous warnings at the home. They were constrained in their capacity to gain access in the home and in the last case, the social workers had to break in the home and forcefully take John to the hospital and later to Milpara. Community Profile Milpara is a 90-place facility with a special dementia accommodation. The agency offers all single room accommodation with a good number of ensuites. Currently, the agency has 30 people who are over 70 years. There are 15 secure dementia beds and 92 beds in total. It also has a secure garden, low care admission, own pets and double rooms. Personal trainers usually run the agency gym and include a healthy ageing brainwork program. There are various on-site facilities such as agency bus, kiosk, church, and hairdressing salon. There are 16 whites, 5 black Americans, 4 Hispanics, and 5 Asians. The agency provides care services to the 30 elderly persons through a highly trained multidisciplinary team comprising of care workers, social workers, and various therapists. The social workers help the elderly to adjust to life in the new residences, advocating for the needs and rights of the clients, making psychosocial assessments and providing supportive counseling. The agency requires the workers to hold a master’s degrees in social work and to be licensed by the state. This ensures that they provide quality services to the elderly (Dominelli 2004). Reference List Andresen, M & Puggaard, L 2008, ‘Autonomy among physically frail older people in nursing home settings: a study protocol for an intervention study’, BMC Geriatrics, vol. 8, p. 32. Arenson, C, Busby-Whitehead, J, Brummel-Smith, K, O’Brien, J, Palmer, M & Reichel, W2009, Reichel’s Care of the Elderly: Clinical Aspects of Aging, Cambridge University Press, New York. Asquith, S, Clark, C & Waterhouse, L 2005, The Role of the Social Worker in the 21st Century: A Literature Review, The University of Edinburgh Department of Social Work, Edinburg. Baldwin, D & Birtwistle, J 2002, An Atlas of Depression. The Parthenon Publishing Group, New York Crawford, K and Walker, J 2004, Social Work with Older People, Learning Matters, Exeter. Dominelli, L 2004, Social Work: Theory and Practice for a Changing Profession,Polity, Cambridge. Jones, L, Ridley, J & Robson, A 2001 Public Attitudes to the Provision of Free Personal Care: Focus Group Research’ in (eds) Machin, D and McShane, D Providing Free Personal Care for Older People: Research Commissioned to Inform the Work of the Care Development Group. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Central Research Unit Lothian, K & Philp, I 2001, ‘Maintaining the dignity and autonomy of older people in the healthcare setting’, BMJ, vol. 322, no. 7287, pp. 668-670 Richardson, V & Barusch, A 2006, Gerontological Practice for Twenty-First Century: A Social Work Perspective, Columbia University Press, New York. Tibbs, M 2001, Social Work and Dementia: Good Practice and Care Management, London: Jessica Kingsley Read More