Zeitschrift für Demenz

Abstrakt

Enabling Positive Risk Taking - A framework for supporting choice and an active lifestyle within the care home setting

Jo Croft

This presentation explores the barriers that exist for people living with dementia within care settings to live an active life which involves risk taking, barriers that are sometimes unwittingly put up by care providers and health care professionals in an effort to keep people safe. This is often as a consequence of the tension that exists between delivery of holistic, person-centred care on the one hand and the duty to protect those in our care from foreseeable harm on the other. By using a Positive Risk Assessment tool, this tension can be managed effectively; it supports and evidences defensible decision making, records the risks and benefits of a particular activity to be undertaken and respects and promotes the exploration of the values and world view of the individual living with dementia to whom it concerns. Appropriate use of this simple tool within the individual care plan supports the care provider or health care professional to evidence duty of care has been met, whilst upholding the freedoms and rights of the person living with dementia to live as active a life as possible.