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Has the Treating Physician of the injured person signed off on that life care plan?

I have seen this term used primarily in the psychological and counseling fields and often provided in therapeutic centers by professional counselors over a few months or so.  I have also more commonly seen and have used "life skills trainers" or "neuro attendants" as some may prefer for job title identification in lieu of traditional home health aides or certified nurse aides or care providers when specific long-term structure, support and supervision is required in the home setting in lieu of a residential TBI program due to brain injury or other neurocognitive disability. People like different job titles and that is OK, as long as it is understood what service they are providing and there is not an overlap for one-on-one personal care services and supervision in the home that follows a therapeutic plan of care (just like a TBI program provides otherwise). One could also use the title of "life coach", absent a specific certification or license with such title, if it makes people feel better; however, from what you noted, it appears as though this plan already provided for home health care services otherwise, unless that is not completely clear. 

Dan M. Bagwell

Philip, my point, as was referenced, was "absent a specific certification or licensure" designation for the title.  I am not sure that every state recognizes the certification, but having said that, I am a registered nurse and licensed in my state for the same.  Does that mean that it is inappropriate for breast feeding mothers to use the term "nursing"  or "to nurse" or for others to use the term "dry nurse" or "wet nurse" and as a general term per accepted definition as "as woman who takes care of a young child"?  The key here was purely one of providing a specific service without overlap for supervision and structure, although I would agree that for the sale of clarity, best practices would suggest using  the most recognized and appropriate title designation for the service.  

Dan Bagwell

Thanks for your follow-up Philip. You are correct and we both really agree.  As one from a profession in which the term "nurse" is so loosely applied globally, I am much less sensitive about job titles, unless the use of such title has very significant ramifications.  For example, some of the non-licensed employees in post-acute brain injury treatment facilities and long term programs for supported life care have different titles for the same or similar job description.  These range from life skills trainers to life skills technicians to neuro attendants and so forth. This provides these important, non-licensed care providers some specific distinction within their career fields even though there is also carry over of all tasks from personal care assistance to carrying out a carefully designed therapeutic regimen, whether it is through recreational pursuits to shopping, money management/budgeting, planning out daily activities, general task performance requiring concrete or abstract thinking, planning, organizing, multitasking, and general decision making.  Structuring these activities are quite different from routine personal care assistance, but personal care assistance is also part of the job. Providing these employees with unique titles representing what they do is just good business practice, but I would certainly agree that there should be some uniformity and clarity for such when preparing a life care plan and including a specific level of service.

Take care,

Dan