Published: October 30, 2019 | By Sydney Valentino
Dr. Caitlin McArthur, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo (supervisor Dr. Giangregorio), delivered a talk on her work entitled:
“Assessing the quality of physical rehabilitation for older adults in long term care homes”
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A funding change in Ontario in 2013 led to questions about the quality of physical rehabilitation provided in long term care and the need for leadership in this sector.
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The literature review revealed that intervention trials of physical rehabilitation in long term care are most commonly delivered and evaluated at the resident-level and assess performance-based measures (e.g., how residents walk, get in and out a chair, balance on one foot), activities of daily living (e.g., dressing, walking, moving in bed), and mood (e.g., depression).
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Long term care homes that had more rehabilitation did not perform better on the quality indicators, except for homes that had more nursing rehabilitation minutes in Alberta. A large proportion of residents not getting physical therapy or getting very little physical therapy was related to worse performance on two of the quality indicators measuring how many residents get better at their activities of daily living.
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The policy change has begun to move rehabilitation in long term care in Ontario in the right direction by increasing accountability and better targeting of services.
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More rehabilitation provided in a long term care home isn’t necessarily related to better outcomes for activities of daily living and falls.
Please feel free to contact Dr. Caitlin McArthur (cmcarthu@uwaterloo.ca) if you have any questions or would like to discuss future work.
This ​blog post was first published by the MIRA Trainee Network. Read the ​original article.​
