Cognitive Assessments
A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia, can be a frightening and uncertain time for all involved. This can lead to:
There is a concern that admitting to memory issues will lead to a move into residential care.
The reality is, in most instances, a client can be supported to continue living in their own home. A comprehensive OT assessment will help the client, their family, support workers and funding body by identifying the environmental, technological, and physical support to enable this.
Home is the best place to assess cognition
The Process
Our experienced OT’s have an excellent understanding of and experience working with cognitive impairment. The Cognitive assessment is best carried out in an environment a client finds familiar and comfortable, usually their home. The assessment usually involves both Standardised and Functional Cognitive assessments.
Standardised Cognitive Assessment
Our OT’s are qualified and licenced to conduct a standardised cognitive assessment if required. This type of assessment is paper based, involves responding to a series of questions and tasks eg drawing a clock face, and counting backwards in multiples of a number. Standardised Assessments can give an indication to the extent of someone’s cognitive impairment but, as importantly, are useful as they help identify particular components of cognition that an individual is experiencing difficulty with, along with areas of cognition that are working well or are unaffected.
Functional Cognitive Assessment
The Functional Assessment involves the OT observing a client carrying out one or more of their common daily activities. This often gives a greater insight into a clients strengths and weaknesses. From an analysis of the cognitive assessment, the OT will assess the potential safety issues and risks.
General Home Safety Assessment
Assessment of mobility, transfers and physical movement patterns are generally assessed as part of the process as co-morbidities frequently affect someone’s ability to move safely around their home. If home modifications are recommended the OT will provide details in their report.
Following the assessment we analyse our findings and produce a report with recommendations to help the individual to continue to live at home, safely. This can include an Individualised Cognitive Support Program.
Individualised Support Program
Often, in their enthusiasm to support someone with a cognitive impairment, family members and support workers will attempt to keep them cognitively stimulated.
In reality this is challenging, it can often result in activities that are too complex and overwhelming or too simplistic and not age appropriate or only address one aspect of the cognitive impairment.
Cognitively stimulating activities and resources exercise the brain, keep it elastic and slow down cognitive decline. Activity analysis is at the core of Occupational Therapy, this enables an experienced OT to design an individual support program. OT’s often refer to the “just right” challenge. A program needs to provide just the right amount of stimulation to engage and challenge the individual without overwhelming.
Cognitively stimulating activities and resources exercise the brain, keep it elastic and slow down cognitive decline. Activity analysis is at the core of Occupational Therapy, this enables an experienced OT to design an individual support program. OT’s often refer to the “just right” challenge. A program needs to provide just the right amount of stimulation to engage and challenge the individual without overwhelming.
Often, in their enthusiasm to support someone with a cognitive impairment, family members and support workers will attempt to keep them cognitively stimulated. The reality is that this is challenging, often times resulting in activities that are too complex and overwhelming or too simplistic and not age appropriate or only address one aspect of the cognitive impairment.
Program Inclusions
A program needs to provide just the right amount of stimulation to engage and challenge the individual without being overwhelmed. This might include:
Strategies to simplify use of phones, remote controls, microwaves, computer etc.
Resources to enable the individual with a cognitive impairment to continue engaging with the activities they enjoy and find valuable.
Strategies to increase safe and confident social engagement.
Advising and educating support workers to enable and encourage a clients involvement with daily tasks rather than taking over. For example advising which aspects of the laundry or meal preparation to involve the client with.
Assistive technology that provides peace of mind to family members, carers, and funding bodies.
Activities such as crosswords, word searches and games that are age and culturally appropriate, as well as appropriate to the level of cognitive impairment.
Providing strategies and education to support family members.
Providing strategies and education that give the client choices to help maintain a sense of autonomy.