Alzheimer's Society seeks funding to extend support pilot projects in Ontario

When Alfred Aquilina brought his wife to the long-term care facility that would be her new home, he was carrying her suitcase and a heavy load of emotions.

He knew it was the right time for Mercedes Aquilina, who at age 65 has early onset dementia and Parkinson's disease. But that didn't make it easy.

"It's a terrible feeling to be dropping your loved one there," he said from his home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

"I'm thinking about how is she feeling, how she's leaving her home, something that she's ... built with me and raised our kids and all that kind of stuff. And all her stuff is there, the things that might have grounded her."

But there was a familiar face there waiting for them, and that was a "godsend," Alfred Aquilina said.

Aquilina and his wife were part of an Alzheimer's Society of Ontario pilot project in several communities in the north that assigns a staff member to help prepare someone with dementia — and their family — for a move to long-term care and support them for up to three weeks after.

The society is asking the provincial government to spend slightly under $22 million to fund the transitional support program at all long-term care homes in the province.

Their contact took Mercedes Aquilina by the hand and settled her into her new room when they arrived in January, while Alfred Aquilina spent time filling out paperwork and taking care of other administrative tasks.

"Continuity is so important," he said.

Around one-third of newly admitted residents with dementia will visit an emergency room within 30 days of such a move, which can be traumatic and stressful, the Alzheimer's Society said.

In Sault Ste. Marie alone, not one of the 156 people who have participated in the pilot program required a hospital visit during the time they were supported, the organization said.

"[For] the most important person in this equation, which is the person with dementia, being in the hospital is not good for them. It's very disruptive, disorienting," said Cathy Barrick, the CEO of the Alzheimer's Society of Ontario.

"But it's also not good for the health-care system. It's already stretched beyond its capacity and these folks, when they end up in hospital as well, they require a high level of care and supervision."

The society's request to fund this pilot program is one of three, which includes an ask of $7.6 million to expand provincewide a pilot project in the Brantford area that saw a staff member embedded in an emergency department divert 60 per cent of visits from people with dementia by talking to them about options for community supports.