Daily living component activity 3 descriptor C (2 points)
Needs supervision, prompting or assistance to be able to manage therapy that takes no more than 3.5 hours a week.
Examples of therapy
Therapy can include but is not limited to:
- domiciliary dialysis
- oxygen therapy
- compression bandaging
- psychotherapy i.e. talking therapies undertaken in the home
- exercise regimes undertaken at home
Here is an example where an individual needs 15 minutes of assistance with applying compression bandages every day.
The assistance required each week totals 1 hour and 45 minutes, even though the individual wears the bandages (undertakes the therapy), all day every day.
If the individual is visited by a therapist for 1 hour per week, but undertakes the therapy independently for 1 hour on the other 6 days, only the 1 hour where they are assisted to manage the therapy should be considered rather than the independent therapy.
Daily living component activity 3 descriptor C is likely to apply as the total time they receive assistance to manage the therapy is under 3.5 hours per week.
Example: an individual with schizophrenia who satisfies daily living component activity 3 descriptor C
Tara has schizophrenia and significant paranoia.
She has previously been invited to have cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) at the local hospital but her anxiety is too severe for her to travel to the hospital to have this therapy.
Supporting information
She has a letter from her community psychiatric nurse (CPN) that states that she has CBT at her house instead for 1 hour each week.
Application form
In her application for ADP she reports that:
- the CPN gives her an injection each week because she wasn’t taking her medications regularly
- she has the therapy at home and says that this has been ongoing for around 12 months and that it is going to continue indefinitely
As Tara has a condition that means she cannot travel outside of her house to have therapy and has a nurse visiting her weekly to provide therapy, she needs prompting to do this.
She also requires prompting to take her medication because she was previously non-compliant with her medication.
Case manager’s decision
The case manager determines that Tara satisfies daily living component activity 3 descriptor C, because she needs to have therapy at home for less than 3.5 hours per week.
She also requires prompting to take her medication which is descriptor B, but because descriptor C gains more points, this would be awarded.