The recipe for community is gaining momentum in the Anglo-Saxon countries. Various types of social activities are assigned to groups of patients by a medical worker - most often a general practitioner or a nurse collaborating with him.
In English, this type of intervention is called “social prescription” and differs in many details from occupational therapy or classical support groups. Their common features are, first of all, that this is an intervention in relation to a group that has a similar set of medical or psychosocial problems.
Who are community recipes for?
- I could not sleep, I had problems with proper nutrition. Even the little things overwhelmed me,” says Mirella, a middle-aged woman whose mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and whose father died a year later. She used to be proud of her independence. - I felt very lonely and isolated from people. I was at home all the time,” complains a young woman named Aasma. “I have vision problems and many other health problems,” says an older man, Roland.
Such people often turn to a doctor for help, not always only in connection with purely medical issues. The doctors themselves admit that they shrugged their shoulders many times. Medications are not always the best solution, and even when they are, they are often best combined with non-drug interventions. The three people mentioned above have one thing in common: they all took advantage of the help in the form of the so-called social prescription.
- When I spoke to my doctor, he referred me to a social prescribing specialist. There I found the right way. I learned about the community center, which has many programs with different activities. I was able to make new friends there, get out of the house,” says Aasma. “If you have problems, you should share them, talk about them,” he adds. “I started doing things that I couldn’t do before, because I didn’t even know about them,” says Roland.
- Social assignments do help, improve health, and bring numerous benefits to patients, says Dr. Moham Sekeram of Wideway Medical Center, which helps find this kind of support.
What is a social prescription?
Social assignment is based on the fact that doctors, nurses or other properly trained medical professionals refer patients to various activities, carried out together with others, that contribute to their physical and mental health. It is best if they are managed by a special organization cooperating with the clinic.
Doctors try to assess the general situation of the patient, including economic and family. It is not uncommon for financial, housing or social problems to hinder treatment or even cause deterioration in health, for example due to chronic stress. Learning new skills, playing sports, gardening, cooking are just a few examples of what people with such help can do together. They can also look forward to additional advice, such as healthy eating and lifestyle. Everything is designed to support recovery and behavior.
The method is especially useful for people with chronic, mild or moderate psychological problems, with various underlying health problems, or simply for those who feel social isolation (which studies show affects health). This type of help can also be in addition to highly supervised occupational therapy focused on specific problems.
Is it possible to get a prescription for the community in Poland?
This type of assistance is especially intensively developed in the UK. However, it also goes to Poland. For the first time in Poland, such a system was launched in 2018 by Konstantin Lodzki, and the organizers quickly started talking about the growing popularity of an idea called “Recipes for Life”. Elderly and dependent people were sent to classes. Patients could benefit from, for example, art, sports, field trips, computer courses, or a “kindness telephone”.
Source: Wprost
