SPA-LTC Toolkit – SPA LTC

Welcome to SPA-LTC. This page helps you find the resources that are relevant to you. You can access this help by clicking on the question mark at any time.

Filters

Use the filters to tell us your language preference and the region in which you live. We are expanding our services to meet needs in both French and English in as many locations across Canada as possible, but some combinations may not have resources available.

Interactive Guide

The interactive visual guide depicts the journey through the palliative approach to long-term care, It represents the chronological progression from transitioning a patient to long-term care, through living with advancing illness, to the patient's end of life and the bereavement of the family. Each of the elements in the model relate to facets of care - preparing for future changes, improving comfort and quality of life, and building caring relationships - and to the actions that can be taken by organizations, patients, and family members. Click on any of the elements in the visual guide to see the actions that relate to them.

Actions

Select one of the numbered action topics to be presented with resources related to that action.

Building Organizational Capacity

Scroll down and you will find an alternate set of filters focused on helping you build organizational capacity. These are an alternate way to access some of the resources available, and are intended primarily for members of organizations. When you click on these filters, it will replace any action selected and the resources will show in the resource area.

A depiction of the clickable elements in the footer

Resources

The resources relevant to your selection will show in the middle of the page. Click on any of the resources to access them.

Transition to long-term care

Living with advancing illness

End of life

Bereavement

Transition to Long Term Care

For resources related to this facet, choose:

Action 1: Introduce a palliative approach to care
Action 2: Encourage early conversations about values and wishes
Action 3: Use a resident and family-centred approach to address changes in health together

Living with Advancing Illness

For resources related to this facet, choose:

Action 2: Encourage early conversations about values and wishes
Action 3: Use a resident and family-centred approach to address changes in health together
Action 4: Monitor for significant changes in health

End of Life

For resources related to this facet, choose:

Action 4: Monitor for significant changes in health
Action 5: Prepare the resident and their family for the end of life
Action 6: Support the resident and family when the resident is dying

Bereavement

For resources related to this facet, choose:

Action 5: Prepare the resident and their family for the end of life
Action 6: Support the resident and family when the resident is dying
Action 7: Support bereaved family members

Strengthening a Palliative Approach

Preparing for future changes

Improving comfort and quality of life

Building caring relationships

Preparing for future changes

It is helpful to think ahead and start planning for important decisions that arise as a life-limiting condition progresses. These efforts will help offset stressful times for residents, their family members/friends, and staff who support them.

Improving comfort and quality of life

Many symptoms worsen as a condition progresses, such as pain, and need to be managed appropriately to ensure quality of life is maintained from the time at admission to death.

Building Caring Relationshipss

Caring relationships are fundamental to build and sustain and need to be focused on a resident and family-centered care approach. These relationships extend to everyone on the team including staff to ensure compassionate care is felt among residents, families/friends, and staff.