The Memory Unit OT

I was recently asked for some treatment ideas to use within the home health setting that’s more than just caregiver education. This is a great question. I think sometimes we feel stuck in a rut within our settings, and it’s hard to see beyond the ‘usual’.

If you’re working with older adults in the home health setting, I want you to know that you’ve got the perfect opportunity and ability to maximize your patients’ quality of life right within the context of their own home. You’ve got the ability to modify and adapt their actual home and routine in order to promote their best living.

Now, when it comes to treatment planning I’m always going to recommend starting with the Occupational Profile. If you’re working with someone who has a limited ability to sit and answer all of the questions within the traditional Profile, you can always ask the primary care partner. I also have a Modified Occupational Profile available to use with your patients.

Once you know who your patient is, what they’re interested in, and why that matters, then you’re ready to start treatment planning.

Within the home health setting, most of your interventions are going to be focused on improving safety within the home, improving active engagement within the functional routine, improving nutrition, improving hygiene, and improving medication management.

Now, that’s not to say the goal is always to achieve independence with these tasks.

If your patient has a neurocognitive diagnosis, they are likely going to need some sort of assistance. But we still work on these tasks. We do a home environment assessment to make sure things are safe, familiar, and comfortable. We perform self care routines with the patient to implement strategies that make it more comfortable for the patient and easier for the care partner. We engage them in meaningful leisure and ‘work’ opportunities within the home to give them a sense of purpose.

I want to let you in on something that I have found is almost always true when working with older adults; they want to have a role and a purpose.

Sometimes putting them to ‘work’ is the thing that gives them a sense of worth. I mean, think about the time period in which they’ve lived. Most of these people have spent their entire lives working hard to provide for themselves and their families. There wasn’t time to sit idly by and watch the day pass. So when we’re looking for ways to better engage our patients, often giving them something structured and productive to do is a highly effective strategy. And it doesn’t have to be anything heavy or complicated. It could be rinsing dishes, making a bed, folding laundry; and not with a focus on perfecting the skill but with the focus of improving sustained attention to task and overall quality of life.