By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Engage in re-ablement processes to assist clients in relearning skills necessary to engage in living activities
Identify actions that can be taken, or adaptations that can be made, to assist clients to engage as actively as possible in all living activities.

Encouraging living activities

Living activities are those activities that a client will need to partake to live independently.

These may include:

Cooking and feeding oneself
Cleaning oneself/bathing
Dressing
Grooming
Household chores

Re-ablement

Re-ablement involves helping people learn or perhaps more often relearn the skills they need for everyday living. Older people may have lost these skills through the deterioration of health and their reliance on support. It is a new approach to care that means carers guide client’s on tasks, doing them with the client instead of doing them for the client.

Care workers will have to take the role of guide and supervisor – this will mean standing back and letting the client have a go instead of doing it for them.

Care workers will have to discuss the goals of the client with them so that they can think of tasks that can help the client to achieve them. Larger goals should be split into smaller targets that result in the larger goal being accomplished. For example, a large goal for a client could be to prepare their own meals; this could be split into smaller goals specific to their needs.

Support should be adjusted for each client on an individual basis; support should be decreased for clients who are making progress and achieving their targets, but it should be increased for those who are struggling.

Case study

A client called Mr S has recently asked for a care worker to visit her at home for help preparing meals. He is slightly visually impaired and has osteoporosis and arthritis and uses a walking aid. An assessment was undertaken and found that he would need ongoing support for his washing and dressing tasks, although encouragement from carers could allow for some independence in this area.

Mr S used a delivery food service where frozen meals were delivered to him. He found it difficult to heat the meals because of his visual impairment – he could not read the instructions and the struggled to see the microwave, which resulted in many burned meals.

The care workers decided to:

Move the microwave towards the window
Stick labels with cooking times written onto meals in the freezer e.g. 6 minutes
Stick bright labels with raised sections to represent some of the common numbers used on the microwave e.g. 1 minute, and 5 minutes.

This resulted in Mr S being able to prepare meals on his own. After a few weeks, he was able to manage with just two visits instead of the three he had been having. These visits were for help with getting washed and dressed either for the day or for bed.