Mobility Decline Prevention
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Modules - Mobility Decline Prevention
CMS TO NURSING HOMES: "TRY TO IMPROVE FUNCTIONAL ABILITY"
These days the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMA) is encouraging long-term-care consumers to use their purchasing power to hold nursing homes accountable for poor quality of care. Its Nursing Home Compare website exerts pressure on the industry by reporting, for each facility in the nation, the percentage of residents whose need for help with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) has increased. A bad score signals potential problems and may steer consumers away from the facility.
Delve a few pages into this website and you find that CMS is also educating consumers to be discerning nursing home shoppers. "Nursing homes should always strive, with every resident, to try to improve functional ability as much as possible…," it advises. "When you visit the nursing home, ask what programs are in place to maintain and improve the physical function of the residents." (3)
The message from CMS is clear: Your facility needs to do something to help residents accomplish such basic daily activities as walking, transferring, and moving in bed. The benefits of such support programs, typically exercise programs, include enhancing self-image and increasing activity levels. The chief benefit, however, may lie not in what these programs improve but in what they prevent: further functional decline.
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