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Is your mother living in a nursing home and labelled as a Category I or II resident?
Most nursing homes in Singapore functionally categorise their residents in order to better manage their needs.
A Resident Assessment Form is used to assess the physical, psychological, emotional and social needs of the resident in nursing homes. This is to ensure consistency in rating residents according to their needs. The scores for the physical needs of the residents are time-rated and based on a time motion study done by the Ministry of Health (Nursing Division).
As a guideline, the residents in nursing homes are generally classified into 4 functional categories:
Category I
Resident is physically and mentally independent; may or may not use walking aids; do not need or need minimal assistance in activities of daily living (ADL).
Category II
Resident is semi-ambulant, requires some physical assistance and supervision in ADL, and may have mild dementia, psychiatric or behavioural conditions.
Category III
Resident is wheelchair- or bed-bound, may have dementia, psychiatric or behavioural conditions, and need help in ADL and supervision most of the time.
Category IV
Resident is highly dependent, may have dementia, psychiatric and behavioural problems, and require total assistance and supervision for every aspect of ADL.
So if your mother is a Category II resident, it means that she is partially mobile and may require the help of other people to move around. She may have some mild psychiatric or behavioural conditions like dementia, and would require some supervision in activities of daily living.
With a classification system like this, the staff at the nursing homes would be able to differentiate the amount of supervision and aid a resident requires from the get-go, which will make their job easier and ensure adequate care is rendered to each resident.
Furthermore, this system allows nursing homes to ensure they have a good mix of residents from each category so that they will have the adequate manpower and resources to take care of the residents properly and maximise the use of their staff and resources.