preview

Charities, Parkinson's, Multiple Chlorosis And Als And Huntington's Disease

Better Essays

Nearly two years ago, Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of DC, embarked upon the launch of a program funded by the Griffin foundation, that would provide comprehensive social work to patients diagnosed with neurodegenerative disorders with a primary focus on Huntington’s Disease. Huntington Disease is a hereditary disease that is a complex and debilitating illness that has often been called “quintessential family disease”. (HUNTINGTON'S DISEASE SOCIATY OF AMERICA, 2017) Other illnesses served through the program are Parkinson’s, Multiple Chlorosis and ALS. While researching the program design, we discovered, no easily identifiable evidenced-based model of social work existed to address the specific needs patients with neurodegenerative …show more content…

The implementation of a combination of evidenced-based models such as traditional patient navigation, and the wrap-around services model, coined by the project, Therapeutic Patient Navigation is now utilized to address the complex long term needs of the population that we serve. The service goals of Therapeutic Patient Navigation through the project would include individual and family counseling; linking patients to specialty care; assisting with medical adherence, participating in the health planning process; educating patients and family about the illness; providing extensive support with the daily functioning through providing wrap-around service referrals. The outcomes seek to improve symptom management, improve patient emotional support, and increase the patient quality of life by decreasing the emotional destress caused by lack of support, and confusion over navigating the medical system. Tackling the dynamic nature of the potential range of social work services to these patients ultimately shaped the program design, and widened the scope of practice of the social work team in the field, and required that crafted new model of social work. The team immediately observed that

Get Access