Draft Details

1.1    General

The Standard describes essential elements and specific requirements and recommendations for the care of persons living with dementia in home and community care settings. It is intended for use by all persons living with dementia as well as groups and individuals who deliver care to persons living with dementia in those settings, including

a)   home and community care service organizations, whether public, private or non-profit.

b)   Agencies involved in the oversight, education and support of home and community care organizations.

c)   health care professionals, administrators, and support personnel employed by the home and community care organization

d)   Care partners; and

e)   subcontractors.

This Standard includes requirements and recommendations for supporting quality of life through directed living standards for persons living with dementia and care partners with specific attention to:

a)   needs assessment.

b)   the health, safety, and well-being of persons living with dementia, and care partners; and

c)   the health and safety of care personnel.

d)   access to education and training to care partners, about dementia, as well as how to support persons living with dementia

e)   workforce recruitment, training, evaluation, and retention.

f)    organizational structures, management systems, resources, policies, procedures and practices.

g)   measures to support person-centered care (including direct involvement of the person living with dementia in care decisions, consistent with their abilities), equal access to care, and respecting the privacy and dignity for all persons living with dementia.

h)  policies to support equal access to services, and to provide care that respects and responds to an individual’s cultural, national, linguistic, religious, and sexual and gender identity.

i)    building public awareness and education around stigma and myths regarding dementia.

j)    planning, management, provision and ongoing evaluation of individualized care plans

k)   evaluation and continual improvement of system-level services to persons living with dementia; and

l)    Basic modifications to the physical environment to support care, where possible.

1.2   Exclusions

1.2.1

This Standard does not comprise a comprehensive set of requirements for home and community care organizations. The scope of the development of this standard is to address the identified need for dementia-specific care requirements for home and community care. The standard shall be used as a supplement to general home and community care standards, to help ensure that the needs of persons living with dementia within the program population are planned for and properly addressed.  It can be used to support implementation or improvement of services to persons living with dementia in both new and existing programs.

1.2.2

This Standard does not address clinical practice.

1.2.3

This standard was created for home and community care settings exclusive of long-term care (LTC), however many of the principles herein are also applicable to LTC settings.

1.3   Terminology

In this standard, “shall” is used to express a requirement, i.e., a provision that the user is obliged to satisfy in order to comply with the standard; “should” is used to express a recommendation or that which is advised but not required; and “may” is used to express an option or that which is permissible within the limits of the standard.

Notes accompanying clauses do not include requirements or alternative requirements; the purpose of a note accompanying a clause is to separate from the text explanatory or informative material.

Notes to tables and figures are considered part of the table or figure and may be written as requirements.

Annexes are designated normative (mandatory) or informative (non-mandatory) to define their application.