Since launching the My Dementia Companion tool to help family and friend carers navigating this complex journey, many professionals are using it to help them in their work!
Based on our conversations and feedback, we thought we would share a couple of examples so professionals can utilise the tool to save them time and enhance their clients’ outcome.
Some care/ case managers are incorporating the tool into their individual client’s care plan by guiding the client and family carer through specific Topics. For example, a client is in the process of reviewing his driver’s licence, the care manager will work them through that Topic, create tasks-to-do and then review them in the subsequent meetings. Carer managers are using the “Save for Later” function to mark items to-do, such as getting a licence review, obtaining disability parking permit or taxi vouchers etc. Some managers are creating their own to-do-lists in their own software. This saves care managers time as the information is already there and follows a linear line. This also helps them to improve outcomes for their clients and family because they are setting objectives/ goals and achieving them, which aligns to the Aged Care Quality Standards.
Some dementia nurses and educators are using the tool to share resources with other clients’ carers, particularly at carer group meetings. Some have organised their carer group meetings by the Topics or Sections, such as covering “Communication and dementia” Topic for this carer group meeting and then “Validation therapy” Section in the next one. This provides some structure with readily available resources that can help to improve your care group meetings.
We hope professionals have found this to be helpful.
If you are a family carer and found these interesting, you could also suggest some of these to your care provider to support you on your journey.