ROLE OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR OLDER PEOPLE

The Mental Health for Older People Service includes a range of trained professionals who work together to provide a variety of services.

Within the Programme we have a Programme Manager, a Team Leader, 6 Nurses, 3 Social Workers, 1 Occupational Therapist, 3 Care Managers, 4 Community Care Assessors and 4 part time Team Secretaries.

We work closely with 2 Consultant Psychiatrists, 1 Staff Grade Psychiatrist and 2 Senior House Officers. We would also have Clinical Psychology input.

Community Mental Health Nurses & Social Workers

Our Community Mental Health Nurse (CMHN) or social worker (SW) will undertake a comprehensive assessment of need considering the person’s physical, psychological and social health state.

Our nurses are Registered Mental Health Nurses with specialist training in community care. Their role is to assess the needs of the person, and plan their care accordingly. They will also monitor the effects of certain medications and keep the Doctor informed of the client’s condition.

Our Social Worker is responsible for providing a high level of social care to both the client and carer through a variety of methods such as assessment, counselling and monitoring of their health state.

Either professional will complete a care plan, which aims to meet the needs of the client and their family network.

Throughout this process they will provide support, information and guidance for the client and their carer.

Occupational Therapist

The Occupational Therapist initially assesses the personal, social and environmental needs of the client. We aim to provide treatment to maximise function, safety and independence in activities of daily living, e.g. self-care and leisure.

Care Managers

The Care Managers co-ordinate home based care, day care, specialist residential and nursing home placements.

They work in partnership with the client, their families and professionals to care plan arranged responses to complex needs. They hold responsibility for ensuring that Care Packages are monitored and reviewed on a regular basis and clients are receiving a quality service.

Community Care Assessors

Community Care Assessors (CCA) have responsibility for co-ordinating and delivering a range of specialist care services to meet your assessed needs. These services may be provided on your behalf. These will be monitored and reviewed periodically by your community care assessor to ensure that they continue to meet your needs. You will receive a written care plan giving you information about the services provided to you. The community care assessor works in partnership with clients with a dementia diagnosis, their families, the Mental Health Services For Older People Team and a range of care providers.

Domiciliary Care Worker

Your Domiciliary Care Worker will assist you with a range of social and personal care tasks to meet the needs identified in your care plan. They will build on your existing support networks to enable you to remain in your own home and live as independently as possible.

A referral may be made to others to provide additional services as necessary.

Consultant Psychogeriatrician

Your General Practitioner (GP) may refer you to the consultant medical team which will provide assessment and investigation as an aid to specialist diagnosis leading to development of an individualised treatment and management programme for you.

Clinical Psychology

The Clinical Psychologist is concerned with the cognitive and psychological assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of psychological illness, neurological disease and injury.

In addition to the already mentioned services great efforts are made to help clients avoid admission to hospital. Alternatives to hospital care include placement in an identified nursing home/residential home.

In order to facilitate an early discharge from hospital one may be placed in a nursing/residential home for a short period of time.

Alongside these options is the availability of a quick responsive home care service which provides an intensive care package in the client’s home and supports relatives to care for their family members in their own home. This has proved to be a very beneficial service in the management of clients who have dementia and who would have otherwise required hospitalisation.

Anti-Dementia Drugs

The new drugs for dementia:

Acetylchoinesterase inhibitors are an important class of drugs which aim to increase the available acetylcholine within the brain where it is involved in functions such as attention and memory.

Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl are three drugs in this class licensed for use in early Alzheimer’s Disease and may temporarily slow down the dementing process or even result in a temporary improvement. There is no known way of predicting which individuals will benefit from drug treatment, or for how long.

If an individual is felt to be potentially suitable for a trial of drug therapy their General Practitioner will make a referral to a hospital Consultant for assessment. It is important to weigh up the potential treatment benefits, side effects or risks. The client taking the drug must be able to consent to treatment.

The most common side effects are nausea and vomiting, diarrhoea, dizziness, insomnia and fatigue but these are usually temporary and not everyone suffers from them. Changing from one drug to another may result in fewer side effects.

Drug therapy will only be continued if it is well tolerated and felt to be of benefit to the individual.