Our Case Studies
Cerebral Palsy Case Study
Read our case study on how Grande Care provides personalised, compassionate care for clients living with cerebral palsy, enhancing overall well-being.
Background
LL has been living with Cerebral Palsy from a very young age. Later on, she developed Arthritis, Osteoporosis, Severe Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Autism, and recently got diagnosed with PTSD
Intent
We wanted to develop a bespoke action plan for LL by taking into account her life history, needs, and current presentation. The aim was to improve overall well-being and engagement and reduce signs of depression, anxiety, and distress. We also wanted to improve her confidence and ability to socialise with others and provide a positive environment that promotes her independence in both her physical and mental health.
What we did
The registered manager, carers, and with the help of the psychologist, EMDR team and GP, we were able to create an action plan by deciding both the short-term and long-term goals to be able to help her live without any fear, helping her with the coping techniques for her anxiety, and panic attacks. For the short-term goals: We tried to increase expressive language skills, and helped her to decrease anxiety symptoms in certain social situations, improve compliance with her daily routines to minimise sudden changes in these situations or plans. For example, if there is any sudden change in the rota due to carers being off sick or the GP cancels her appointment, these situations used to cause her high stress which increased her pain and caused spasms in her hands and legs. This could lead to very challenging behaviour for the carers involved. For the long-term goals, we try to enhance her social communication skills in different contexts, improve her self-regulation, and promote independence in her daily living skills.
We helped LL engage more by having her participate in courses like ABD and holistic approaches like Reiki, as she has always been very keen to study. By completing these courses, she felt an increase in her confidence, together with a sense of achievement and purpose in life.
We also tried different coping techniques by making a colour chart to enable the carers to understand her mood without her needing to repeat herself repeatedly when she doesn’t feel like communicating with anyone at times.
Colour chart:
This system was agreed to be used when LL is in a very emotional state and lack of communication, or when she experiences a series of spasms and she’s not able to fully communicate
Due to her PTSD, LL gets a lot of flashbacks of her past traumas she experienced from a very young age. The carers always reassure her and provide emotional support when needed so that she doesn’t feel vulnerable and lonely.
The care staff always involve her when making decisions, such as choices to eat, drink and the clothes she would like to wear daily. This makes her feel more independent in taking responsibility and making daily decisions for her life.
Impact
Since these actions were implemented, the service user has been able to communicate confidently about her specific needs. By planning ahead, incorporating daily routines and minimising changes, her anxiety levels have greatly improved. She can cope with some tricky situations with a more positive approach. Due to her stress levels getting better, this helps lessen the physical pains and spasms she was experiencing, which allows her to stay in her wheelchair/recliner for longer. Her carers can take her out for a change of scenery and fresh air, which lowers her anxiety and shyness when meeting new people. These steps have dramatically improved her physical and mental health to a level where she feels empowered.
Evaluation
As a result of full support and engagement from the care staff by providing a person centric approach to the service user promoting her independence. We will definitely implement this approach again in future on a regular basis and monitor the service users well-being to ensure this improvement is sustained.
Reviews
Grande Care always tries to harvest the care culture by taking feedback from the service users and their families. This gives us a chance to improve in areas such as understanding complex care needs and continuously investing in personal and professional development to provide safe and effective care to all service users.
Testimonial from LL (client)
“When I first started with Grande Care I was expected to learn a different language to communicate with my carer because before Amrit took over the company, all of the carers, including the manager could only speak in Romanian. So as you can imagine it was quite difficult to provide care and learn a different language at the same time. And my mental health was not taken into consideration, but since Amrit has taken over I am able to sit in my wheelchair and because of the training that the carers now have, I can be supported with my mental health as well as getting up on a daily basis and living normal and happy life. It is almost as if I don’t have a disability because the carers don’t view me and highlight my disability as a problem is more of a sense of empowerment instead of an issue because the carers make me feel proud of who I am and what I can do on a daily basis”.
