Aged persons mental health intensive community treatment
- Program statement - October 2008
Aged persons mental health
intensive community treatment (October 2008) (PDF File 170KB)
The purpose of this document is to provide a program statement for the
Aged Persons Mental Health Intensive Community Treatment Program. This
program will provide an alternative to acute treatment in an Aged persons
mental health (APMH) acute inpatient unit and will substitute for acute
beds in an APMH service. The development of this program statement has
been based on the experience of both the Frankston and Dandenong (Osborne
2000) Aged persons mental health services in conducting acute treatment
in patients’ homes.
Demand for mental health treatment for older people will continue to grow
in the context of a growing aged population. While prevalence studies
vary enormously in their estimates of particular conditions among older
populations it is accepted that there is a strong association between
comorbid physical illness, functional disability and depression in older
age. It has been estimated that 10 per cent of people with dementia experience
severe to extreme behavioural and psychological symptoms associated with
dementia requiring intervention from mental health services.
Program funding is provided for intensive community treatment
of older people with a mental illness. It is provided at a level to enable
a discrete clinical sub team to be established to focus on acute treatment
within the structure of an APMH community team.
The intensive community treatment team will be multidisciplinary
and function on an outreach basis, delivering acute care to the patient
in their home context, be that a private home or a residential setting.
The program includes a 24-hour response capacity. Each patient will be
allocated a community treatment nurse who will be the primary contact
for the patient, family, other carer, GP and APMH community case manager
during the acute course of treatment.
Intensive community treatment is an acute treatment service
in the home, not a crisis assessment service. Responsibility for a crisis
response for older people with a suspected mental illness remains with
the APMH community team during office hours and the Crisis assessment
and treatment service function after hours.
|
