Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | Page 58

Working with Various Client Groups
hospital and community aged care. Thirdly, provide acute care by specialists
with background in geriatrics and multi-disciplinary/ trans-disciplinary
approaches. Fourthly, engage in coordinated community services that have
clients at the centre.

What does it mean to get in early?
In essence, this is about picking up from assessments instances where older
people need help in the community and then planning what will enable
them to continue to look after their own health, prevent falls, stay active
and remain independent. All these in addition to being able to maintain a
harmonious family relationship and connectedness in the community. The
greatest challenge is often in having a single assessment instrument which
can distract one from the immediate possibility of giving older people good
information that they can use as part of maintaining their independence.
The emphasis here is good information that is understandable from a user
perspective and not from a domain expert perspective. There can be a long
term goal of having an assessment framework to develop electronic shared
assessments for health, social care and the community agencies. This will
aid in the assessment and response to the needs of older people. However,
this may take a long time which would delay older people from receiving
good information.
What might be good information? It is information that is easy for the
older people to understand which can lead them to receiving help early to
counter threats to health, independence and well-being. Such information
would cover:
-

seeing, hearing and communicating;
looking after oneself;
getting around;
safety and relationships;
accommodation and finance;
mental health and well-being; and
staying healthy.

We could aim for self-assessment which is easy to complete and understand.
So what all of us who are in contact with older people can do is to give good
information, help the older people or family members use it so that they
can then decide how they might adjust their daily activities accordingly. In
some instances, the ideal and good practice is to have an assessment and
then put together the service response based on the priorities of the older
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