Your Healthcare Team: Allied Healthcare Professionals

A supportive healthcare team is an integral part of life with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Some may only consider doctors or nurses to be a part of their healthcare team, but there are so many other healthcare professionals that people with Parkinson’s can benefit from seeing.

Having a holistic approach to your health is a great way to ensure that you are getting the most out of your treatment. There are many trained healthcare professionals involved in the delivery of health or related services pertaining to the identification, evaluation, and prevention of diseases and disorders, outside of the fields of medicine and nursing (ASAHP, 2018). These workers are typically referred to as allied healthcare professionals (AHCP), and include occupational therapists, physiotherapists, dietitians, speech language pathologists, counsellors, social workers, chiropractors, massage therapists, and others.

AHCP provide a wide range of roles and responsibilities including:

• Designing programs to improve functions like balance, movement, or communication
• Identifying, evaluating, and preventing diseases and disorders
• Educating individuals, families, and communities on their diagnosis and best treatment options
• Providing emotional, financial, and other supports to individuals and families

Parkinson Society BC believes it is valuable to have an interdisciplinary approach to your healthcare. Management of PD includes the diagnosed individual, their carepartners/family, and a team of allied healthcare professionals. When limiting ourselves to one medical professional, we are obtaining only one perspective on our health and treatment. Someone with PD may have multiple complex needs, which may include additional diagnoses of other physical or psychological conditions. It is therefore important to find support from a team of professionals with various areas of expertise so you can receive the most holistic support and treatment from a medical, psychological, and social perspective.

Choosing Your Healthcare Team

A crucial part of building your healthcare team is finding professionals who are able to provide the kind of care that is most important to you. Communicate openly with your healthcare team to ensure that your needs, preferences, and values are all taken into account when establishing a care plan or receiving treatment. This sometimes involves heavy topics, like advance care planning, so it is important to find practitioners with whom you feel comfortable. Those who are responsible for your care can make arrangements to provide you with the best options available within your established boundaries, whether that includes religious accommodations, financial barriers, or other preferences and values you communicate.

Person-first healthcare that prioritizes the values of the patient is sometimes referred to as the palliative care approach. In the past, palliative care was reserved for end-of-life, when professionals focus on providing comfort, rather than curative treatment, to their patients. Now, according to Kathleen Yue at the BC Centre for Palliative Care, all holistic care for chronic, life-altering conditions can be considered to be provided with a palliative care approach from the point of diagnosis (2019). This type of care does not seek to cure the individual, but rather support them to live well and comfortably for the rest of their life. Palliative care for Parkinson’s can include any conventional healthcare, alongside emotional and spiritual support, social work, or assistance from carepartners, family, friends, volunteers, or assisted living facilities.

To receive healthcare services with a palliative care approach, a person with PD should be highly involved in their own disease management and advance care planning. Healthcare professionals need support from their clients in order to do the best work they can. Alongside open communication about your values, one of the best ways you can help your healthcare team support you is by tracking your symptoms, and communicating any changes you experience.

Sources

Association of Schools of Allied Healthcare Professions (ASAHP). 2018. What is Allied Health? Retrieved from www.asahp.org/what-is

This content was published in the May 2019 edition of our monthly support group newsletter, GroupLink. The content was accurate as of this publication date.