It would have been helpful if a social worker at the memory clinic had followed up with them and prepared them for what might happen next, said Alyssa, herself a social worker, teacher and filmmaker.
“It’s so scary, such uncharted territory,” she said.
“We were so lost.”
Her father had always been a social person, an outgoing person who played golf and played sports at the Y. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, “he really lost his entire social world,” Alyssa said. “He didn’t understand the whole Zoom thing and withdrew into himself.”
The type of dementia he had caused him to have hallucinations and he would call her, sometimes several times an hour, to say strangers were in the house, she said. Twice the hallucinations required a visit to the emergency room.
At one point, “I had to march to the CLSC with my mother and demand a social worker,” she recalls. “I insisted. I said, ‘We need help.'”
Alyssa was able to stand up for her father, “but I can only imagine what it’s like in families where no one stands up for the patients.”
Not everyone realizes that CLSC social workers play an important role when a family is faced with a diagnosis of dementia. For example, if placement in public long-term care becomes necessary, the CLSC must be involved. Initially, the social worker conducts a so-called bio-psychosocial assessment and evaluates which services are needed. In the Kuzmarovs’ case, a respite worker was appointed for Donna and Irwin was referred to St. Margaret Residential Day Center. That center, which offers activities and therapeutic programs including music, art and movement, requires a CLSC referral.
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