Specialized Home Care
With our in-home care services, we provide a customized regimen of care that focuses on individual needs and personal environments. Some of these special care conditions include:
Spinal cord injury
Sustaining a spinal cord injury can be life changing, but it doesn't have to mean the end of a life lived independently in your own home. We specialise in providing tailored care and support to clients with spinal injuries, helping them to lead as full and independent a life as possible, from the comfort of their own home.
What is spinal cord injury?
Cause
Sustaining a spinal cord injury can be life changing, but it doesn't have to mean the end of a life lived independently in your own home. We specialise in providing tailored care and support to clients with spinal injuries, helping them to lead as full and independent a life as possible, from the comfort of their own home.
Symptoms
Symptoms can vary widely depending on where the spinal cord has been damaged. Symptoms can include: pain, numbness, loss of sensation, paralysis, incontinence, loss of breathing and diaphragm function, autonomic dysreflexia, muscle wastage.
How can we help?
Spinal cord injuries can have a lasting impact on the people that sustain them, and the people closest to them. We work closely with our clients and their families to put support in place that is tailored to their needs and choices. We all like to do things a little differently. That’s why we take great care to make sure each of our clients receives the kind of care that works for them. Our expert team of nurses assess every client’s clinical and social requirements to develop a speacialized, comprehensive care and lifestyle plan. We'll then pair our personal care assistants with our clients, based on interests and personality matching, because building strong working relationships not only puts our clients at ease, it's key to delivering an excellent, safe service. Our personal care assistants are able to deliver specialist support for spinal injury, including: ventilator care, wound care, respiratory and gastrostomy management, naso-gastric feeding, and medication administration, with the ongoing support and supervision from our nursing team. We're committed to providing exceptional care through clinical excellence; our nurse-led teams ensure that we're always upholding the highest standards of quality care for our clients, through regular monitoring, review, and training.
Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a complex injury with a broad spectrum of symptoms that can cause a number of impairments or disabilities. The impact of a TBI on a person and his or her family can be devastating, since this injury is not only physical, but can cause mental and emotional challenges in the patient. Having a brain injury is life changing for those injured, and the people closest to them. Having expert support in place can help make managing that change a little easier. At First Class Home Care, we take a flexible approach to supporting clients with a brain injury to live independently in their own homes. We tailor our services to each individual’s unique needs, choices and circumstances; providing the support they need, designed around them.
What is brain injury?
Brain injuries fall into two categories, acquired brain injury (ABI) or traumatic brain injury (TBI).
ABI
Brain injury Acquired brain injury can result from conditions including stroke, brain tumours, infection, poisoning, hypoxia, ischemia, encephalopathy or substance abuse.
TBI
Traumatic brain injury results from physical trauma, for example, an accident, assault, or neurosurgery.
How can we help?
Brain injuries have both a physical and emotional impact on those that sustain them. In some cases they can lead to permanent disability and can impact on an individual’s understanding, emotions and behaviour, potentially creating complex health care needs and changing lives forever.
Our in-house complex behaviour team is invaluable in supporting our brain injury clients. They provide dedicated, expert support to clients, families, and our teams of personal care assistants. The team has long-standing experience of working with clients with brain injury, and the challenging behaviour that often results from such an injury.
Providing stability and continuity of care to our clients is central to our approach. We achieve this through careful recruitment of the care team, ongoing supervision and training, and strong communication with the client and their family. Brain injury can have far-reaching consequences, affecting those closest to an individual who has been injured - partners, families and friends. Recovering and rebuilding can be a challenging time; that’s why we work closely with each of our clients and their loved ones to provide support, develop strong relationships, and focus on enabling clients to achieve maximum independence and follow their chosen lifestyle.
Related Health conditions we help manage:
Autonomic dysreflexia (AD)
is a condition in which your involuntary nervous system overreacts to external or bodily stimuli. It’s also known as autonomic hyperreflexia. This reaction causes:
• A dangerous spike in blood pressure
• Rapid Heartbeat
• Constriction of your peripheral blood vessels
• Other changes in your body’s autonomic functions
The condition is most commonly seen in people with spinal cord injuries above the sixth thoracic vertebra, or T6. It may also affect people who have multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and some head or brain injuries. AD can also be a side effect of medication or drug use.
AD
is a serious condition that’s considered a medical emergency. It can be life-threatening and result in:
• Stroke
• Retinal Hemorrhage
• Cardiac Arrest
• Pulmonary Edema
Hypertension / Blood Pressure
When blood pressure is not controlled you are at risk of heart attack, stroke, chronic kidney disease and even problems with your vision. One of the ways you can help prevent and control high blood pressure is to make some lifestyle changes. This can often mean a combination of medication, light exercise and diet changes. Often, a single blood pressure drug may not be enough to control your blood pressure, and you may need to take two or more drugs. It is very important that you take the medications prescribed to you. If you have side effects, your health care provider can substitute a different medication.
Ventilator Care
Home care nurses are often faced with providing specialty care to adult and pediatric patients with medically complex needs. The most complicated of these patients require the use of a ventilator in order to maintain adequate breathing to sustain their life. Patients with this level of need require a competent nurse with current knowledge of and experience with the latest medical technology and the ability to work with patients and their families who are experiencing the challenges associated with life with a ventilator.
Wound Care
Wound care has become one of the fastest growing needs for home care services. Interim’s home care clinicians are trained and experienced in wound management, the healing process, and the selection and use of effective wound products and devices.
Mental Health and Depression
When most people think of home health care, they most often imagine only physical injuries or illnesses. However, mental health is an important part of our overall health and can directly affect our physical well being or health. Mental illness requires diagnosis and treatment just as physical conditions do.
Paraplegia and Quadriplegia
For quadriplegia, caregivers can assist with a loved one's daily hygiene. And if there are any medical needs, Skilled Nursing is available in many areas as allowed by state law.
