Expertise Showcase
Bloorview Kids Rehab and Toronto Rehab have joined forces to run a one-of-a-kind clinic that helps youth with disabilities better navigate adulthood.
The new LIFE span clinic is designed to fill gaps in adult services that put youth with disabilities at risk of developing preventable, secondary health conditions when they graduate from children’s services.
“Traditionally they fell through the cracks at age 18,” says Helen Healy, Director of the Life Skills and Wellness Institute at Bloorview Kids Rehab. The LIFE span clinic – located at Toronto Rehab – offers a single point of access for youth to receive comprehensive services from a rehabilitation team that includes a nurse practitioner, a physiatrist, occupational, physical and speech therapists, and a social worker.
Due to medical advances, children born with disabilities are living longer, but the coordinated medical, therapy and life skills services they get in the pediatric system are missing in adult services. The number of children with disabilities who will be entering adulthood in the next five years is considerable at Bloorview alone,more than 1,200 clients will be turning 18 in the next three years.
Dolly Menna-Dack, who grew up with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, hit this wall when she needed surgery and inpatient rehabilitation at age 18. “It’s really frightening not having anywhere to go,” Dolly says. “The adult system is very fragmented. It was a struggle to look for the specialized care I needed. Adult service providers were not prepared for me and I wasn’t prepared for their lack of understanding.”
Dolly – then an adult – ended up having her surgery and rehab in children’s facilities. Dolly was lucky. “Other youth go without the care they need, compromising their health and developing secondary conditions that lead to costly hospitalizations,” Healy says.
“The LIFE span service recognizes that youth with childhood disabilities need specialized, ongoing care throughout life, and we are collaborating with family doctors in the community to build expertise in childhood- onset disabilities,” says Dr. Mark Bayley, LIFE span physiatrist and Medical Director, Neuro Rehabilitation Program at Toronto Rehab.
By increasing the quality of primary care and by ensuring that patients receive coordinated and comprehensive care, the LIFE span clinic’s innovative approach will improve the efficiency of the health care system. “By providing the right care at the right time, future savings from the LIFE span service are estimated at $3.7 million annually, five years into the program,” Dr. Bayley says.
The LIFE span service began in December 2006 as a demonstration project for individuals with cerebral palsy and acquired brain injury. Plans are in the works to expand the service in the near future to youth with spina bifida, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophies, and musculoskeletal disabilities.
Thanks to generous support from donors like you, Bloorview is able to offer much needed programs, like LIFE span, to promote independence of youth navigating from childhood to adulthood.
