Community Care Access Centres (CCAC)

Again, this is a very Ontario-centric posting!

I can't overestimate how important the Community Care Access Centers have been for us. They're a network of offices throughout Ontario, funded and legislated by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. You need a CCAC assessment to qualify someone for residence in a long-term care facility, so that's an obviously important function. But there's a lot more to them.

CCACs provide regional information portals that can help with so many challenges faced by the elderly and their families: challenges that we don't always plan for, and sometimes overlook. Because they aim to maximize the time the elderly spend in their own homes, CCAC centers can coordinate with regional nursing and home care services to provide:

• personal support, for help with things like bathing and dressing;
• nursing care;
• physiotherapy;
• speech language therapy;
• medical equipment and supplies.

They also coordinate special services like:

• respite care: a short-term residence in a nursing home to give a caregiver a break;
• convalescent care: a short-term residence in a nursing home to recover from a specific illness or operation;
• mental health services;
• palliative care.

If you're worried about a parent who doesn't seem to be coping as well at home, but is reluctant to go into a long-term care facility, CCAC just might be able to provide you with what you need to help your parent to stay in his or her home. Call your local office and arrange for an assessment; the health professional will arrange for an interview and assessment, and also assess anything that needs to be done to the home (handrails, electric staircase, etc.). They also serve residents of retirement communities as well, so if your loved one is in a retirement home, but facing a long waiting list for long-term care, CCAC could provide an excellent bridge.

When our parents began to fail, we had enormous trouble sorting out all the problems, all the medications, all the different doctors, and all our own mixed feelings. The CCAC assessment was a very important first step towards gaining objectivity, and figuring out how these problems could be solved.