The Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) is a volunteer-based patient support program that helps prevent delirium in older hospitalized patients and maintains their ability to live a healthy lifestyle.
During a patient’s hospitalization, a trained team of HELP staff and volunteers support patients by ensuring their comfort and organizing activities to keep them mentally and physically active.
HELP is an established, research-based approach that has been helping make hospitals Senior Friendly for more than 20 years. It is part of Michael Garron Hospital’s (MGH) strategy to ensuring senior-friendly care across the services we provide.
HELP is offered in our General Internal Medicine Units in A3 and B3, as well as the Stavro Emergency Department. Our team is working to expand HELP to other areas at MGH where there are older hospitalized patients.
Benefits of HELP
Being in the hospital disrupts a patient’s normal routine while they are coping with illness. This disruption can cause hospitalized older patients to develop delirium: a sudden change in mental status, or sudden confusion, which develops over hours to days.
Delirium is usually, but not always, a reversible short-term condition. Delirium is an especially common and serious problem in hospitalized older patients. Delirium and other complications can cause patients to lose their mental and physical ability to function.
That’s where HELP comes in! HELP promotes activities for the mind and body of older patients during their hospital stay. These activities help improve a patient’s health and well-being by keeping them mentally and physically active and enhancing their overall recovery process during their hospital stay.
HELP activities
- Daily visits: We visit patients daily to help keep them alert, engaged and oriented to daily life. This helps promote their well-being.
- Meal support and hydration: We provide patients with assistance at mealtimes. This includes helping with tray setup and offering companionship and encouragement to eat. This does not include feeding or helping to feed patients.
- Early mobilization: When appropriate during hospitalization, we encourage patients to be physically active as soon as they can.
- Therapeutic activities: We tailor person-centered therapeutic activities to each patient's needs with the goal of maintaining their mental and physical health and encouraging social engagement.
- Sleep support strategies: When appropriate, we provide patients with sleep strategy recommendations to help put them at ease and make them feel more comfortable sleeping in the hospital environment.
Meet the HELP Team
We are a team of staff and volunteers who ensure older adult patients receive the specialized consideration and attention they need to get the best results from their hospital stay.
The team includes a Behavioural Specialist, Activation Coordinators, and carefully trained HELP volunteers. At times, our team may also include nursing and interprofessional practice students, such as those working in occupational or physical therapy. Our team works closely with hospital staff in all departments to meet every older patient’s needs.
Volunteer with HELP
Interested in volunteering with HELP? We welcome volunteers who are:
- Aged 18 or older;
- Willing to participate in the HELP Volunteer Training Program; and
- Passionate about and interested in supporting older adults in our community.
Apply to volunteer with HELP by visiting our Adult Volunteer Program webpage and completing the Adult Program Volunteer Application. In the “Additional Information” section, please indicate your interest in volunteering with HELP.