Ferrini: Volunteer of the Year
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Think long-term care is just for the geriatric crowd? Think again.
The number of younger people living in these residential facilities is growing. Already about 14 percent of long-term care residents are between 18 and 64 years old.
Age is not the only thing that differentiates younger adults from their older counterparts in long-term care facilities. Their needs differ too.
How should the younger patients be handled differently? Dr. Rebecca Ferrini, medical director for Edgemoor, the County’s only skilled-nursing facility, has some answers.
Dr. Ferrini led a team of national experts as they explored the best ways to take care of these younger adults. Her project took about six months to complete and resulted in a tool kit that gives advice to nursing homes’ staffs on how to meet the needs of the younger long-term care population.
The project also led to Dr. Ferrini being named the 2012 Volunteer of the Year by the American Medical Directors Association’s Clinical Practice Committee.
“I was surprised and pleased to be honored,” said Dr. Ferrini, “I had undertaken this project due to a passion for caring for younger adults and recognizing this is a growing concern in long-term care.”
The tool kit follows a young male resident from an accident to a successful adjustment in nursing home life. Along the way, readers learn about generational differences that could be as simple as the type of activities and entertainment younger residents need or as complicated as the reasons the younger patient ended up at a skilled-nursing facility in the first place. Typically, younger patients end up there because of chronic, progressive or neurologic illnesses, or physical problems due to injuries.
“We reviewed the literature and found little, but we found some best practices and approaches that worked and were universal across the United States,” added Ferrini. “The final project is readable and interesting and begins the conversation about how to care for the changing population in long-term care.”