TBI/Stroke
Each year, 500,000 Americans suffer a Traumatic Brain Injury most often caused by car accidents, bicycle accidents, or falls, and 500,000 more sustain a stroke. Although a majority of people survive these conditions, a significant proportion of them require some form of extended care and rehabilitation.
For their families, caring for a loved one who has suffered a brain injury or stroke can be a daunting undertaking, especially since many studies have shown the “typical” caregiver in the U.S. is a 46 year-old woman who works outside the home. Managing the needs of a family, a job, and the demands of someone disabled by stroke or TBI can wear down even the most energetic and committed person.
Which is why, in almost all cases, caregivers reach out to professional homecare agencies like Accredited Health Services. Few New Jersey homecare agencies have more experience in caring for TBI and stroke sufferers than Accredited Health Services. We’ve been there before, with families just like yours, helping them cope with these difficult conditions.
Having a home health aide there with you who has seen it all before, who can answer your questions based on hundreds of hours of experience, who is reliable and professional, and who cares for your loved one with sensitivity, has proven to be a great comfort to all our Accredited Health Services clients.
How to recognize stroke.
There are two kinds of strokes. The most common, ischemic stroke, is caused when a blood clot slows or blocks blood flow to a portion of the brain. Over 80 percent of strokes are ischemic. Hemorrhagic stroke is caused by a tear in a weakened blood vessel wall. The tear allows blood to leak into the brain, causing the death of surrounding brain tissue. Both are usually congenital. Symptoms can include:
- Sudden numbness or weakness of face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
- Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
- Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
- Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
- Sudden severe headache with no known cause
If you see one or more of these symptoms, call 911 immediately.
What kind of training and supervision do our certified home health aides receive?
At Accredited Health Services (AHS), we understand that in order to provide quality care, we must maintain continuity of care and provide our clients with an educated caregiver.
Accredited Health Service Certified Home Health Aides (CHAA’s) receive not only education reinforcement upon hire, but throughout their employment. Upon orientation to Accredited Health Services, all CHHA’s receive reinforcement education on Alzheimer, Dementia, Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury Disease processes and caregiver management. Further education includes the anatomy, physiology and psychological effect of these specific diseases is included in our annual training sessions.
Despite there being similarities in any given disease, the affect the disease has on a person can be quite different. Therefore, during the CHHA’s care, they are evaluated and supervised by our experienced Field RN Supervisors. This too promotes individualized care planning and allows our home health aide’s to ask specific questions pertaining to the client and their disease and receive individualized education.
Finally, Accredited takes training one step further, going beyond accreditation requirements. Those CHHA’s who have been noted to take the extra steps to assure client/ family caregiver satisfaction are given additional, interactive training on multiple diseases including those listed above. AHS recognizes the special nuances of these diseases which include memory and functional impairments and how this sometimes leads to moments of frustration, anger, sadness or despair for both the patient and their family. Detailed education on specific difficult symptom management is provided and includes role playing, providing the Aide with accurate, educated response training.
