URGENT CALL TO ACTION - GOVERNOR’S BUDGET CUTS WILL HURT CAREGIVERS

Part of the Governor’s $3.3 billion budget reduction proposal includes elimination of adult day health care (ADHC) as a MediCal benefit. This will negatively impact thousands of caregivers throughout the state and may impact someone you know and love.

As Orange County’s only Alzheimer’s Day Care Resource Center, Alzheimer’s Family Services Center provides dementia-specific adult day health care services to individuals from the earliest to the most advanced stages of dementia. For example, each year, AFSC serves 20-plus participants who have been denied services at or discharged from sister adult day centers due to difficult-to-manage behaviors such as wandering or aggressiveness. In some cases, AFSC has been able to continue care of such severely impaired individuals for up to two additional years, delaying institutionalization.

Sam, a 77-year-old, African American male with dementia, was found living alone in his rat-infested home, without proper care, little food to eat, and driving unsafely. Sam moved in with his son and daughter-in-law, who couldn’t stop working to provide the round-the-clock supervision Sam needs. Sam had already been found wandering around the community unable to find his way home. Reliant on MediCal for Sam’s care, his family was able to access the adult day health care benefit. If this benefit hadn’t existed, Sam’s family would have had to institutionalize him at much greater cost to MediCal. In addition to dementia, Sam has chronic renal disease, anemia, and hypertension. Our nurses monitor these conditions and immediately report symptoms of concern to his physician, so that Sam doesn’t end up hospitalized. Daily physical and occupational therapy exercises help Sam maintain everyday abilities, such as walking independently, making it easier for his family to continue care at home. As well, Sam and his family benefit from access to a social worker, who helps Sam’s family problem-solve difficult situations, such as managing Sam’s wandering.

Within the context of a stimulating program of recreational activities, adult day health care participants receive multiple health-related services, including nursing and personal care, physical, occupational and speech therapy, care management, nutritional oversight, based on an individual plan of care designed to maximize independence.

At Alzheimer’s Family Services Center, participants have an average of 6 health conditions, including dementia, and are taking an average of 7 medications daily. By managing these conditions in coordination with each participant’s family and primary care physician via comprehensive adult day health care services, AFSC is preventing institutionalization – which improves quality of life for the individual and reduces the cost of care for the state. Clearly, the Governor has not taken into account the cost shift to nursing homes that will occur if the MediCal adult day health care benefit is lost.

I urge you to preserve the adult day health care benefit which is keeping thousands of our most frail Californians out of the institutional setting and reducing the cost of long-term care for the state. You can help by writing a letter and asking the legislature to SAVE THE ADHC program. You can find your legislator at http://www.legislature.ca.gov.