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The Plan is intended to address all persons with disabilities who live, work, and/or visit at Baycrest. It also includes the greater public who seek services, information or communication from Baycrest.
Approximately 1000 elderly patients and residents live at Baycrest, either in the Baycrest Hospital, Jewish Home for the Aged or Terraces of Baycrest. The average age of persons living at Baycrest is greater than 85 years. Family members and other visitors visit many of these patients and residents on a daily basis. The patient and/or resident's spouse and adult children are often elderly themselves.
Seniors regularly visit Baycrest as outpatients to attend ambulatory clinics and other clinical services. Research Subjects attend appointments at the Rotman and Klaru Research units.
Approximately 90 seniors attend the Community Day Centre for Seniors on a daily basis.
The Wagman Centre provides social and recreational programming for over 800 community-based persons 55 years and older.
Approximately 1700 staff work at Baycrest. The current average age of staff is 48 years.
Approximately 3075 registered volunteers provide volunteer services in the various programs at Baycrest. Many of these volunteers are seniors of retirement age.
As an academic teaching centre, various students from the Universities and Colleges work at Baycrest as part of their learning and placement requirements.
Approximately 500 Private Companions work at Baycrest. The patients and residents and/or their families hire these companions.
Contractors and other vendors visit on a daily basis to conduct work or business at Baycrest.
Baycrest provides onsite hospitality services to external groups for educational, social (weddings) and other related events.
The Esther Exton Childcare offers pre-school childcare for up to 52 children under the age of 5 years.
The target population indicates that a significant number of the persons that visit, work, or live at Baycrest are elderly or are of middle age or more.
There are 1.9 million people in Ontario with disabilities. This number is expected to increase as the population ages because the incidence of disability increases with age.
The elderly population will be a special focus for Baycrest, while not reducing our responsibility for all other persons with disabilities.
As people age, they experience gradual declines in vision, hearing, range of motion, physical strength and mental acuity. Significant functional limitations affect almost half the people between the ages of 55 and 79, and over 70 percent of people over 80. Beyond middle age, disability is the norm.
According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, approximately 1 in every 6 persons has speech, voice, and/or language impairments and/or hearing loss.
The Canadian Hearing Society reports that 25% of adult Canadians experience some hearing loss. Prevalence increases up to approx. 50% for persons over 65 years, and according to Health and Welfare Canada, 80% of institutionalized elderly are hard of hearing.
In the Baycrest patient/resident client population, 20% have mild hearing loss, 70% have moderate hearing loss, and 10% have severe hearing loss.
The Canadian Study of Health and Aging (1994) indicated that 8% of Canadians over 65 have dementia; prevalence rates increase to 34.5% for persons over 85. All older adults have normal age-related deficits in various cognitive functions such as memory and attention.