One
of the legal requirement for delivering care and support is person centred
care. Therefore, all providers must create a person centred care plan for each
individual they provide care and support. It must meet individual’s choices and
preferences and be planned with the individual. However, when we create person
centred care plan for an individual with dementia, it is not always possible to
determine or establish their choices and preferences due to their memory impairment,
poor mobility, medical conditions, poor judgement and inability to retain
information and take decision. If choices and preferences of an individual with
dementia cannot be readily established then we must take decision considering
individual’s best interests. Best interests decisions are usually taken in the
presence of various professionals (depending on the specific decision),
individual and family members after assessing all the available information.
Example: One of the individual with dementia would like to go out himself for shopping. Due to individual’s forgetfulness and other associate behaviour, it is not suggested to let him go for shopping on his own.
Best
interests decision: After reviewing all the available information and taking
into account of individual’s and public’s health and safety, it is being
decided that we can introduce online shopping to the individual. If it still
does not fulfil individual’s preferences then one carer can escort him to do
the shopping.
