It is called a comprehensive care clinic because it offers a complete range of services. Home care is the infusion of factor concentrates at home. In Canada most severe hemophiliacs are treated at home. This has major advantages over treatment at the hemophilia clinic or at the emergency room. The comprehensive care clinic team trains the family with a young hemophiliac how to recognize bleeds and then how to infuse the factor concentrate.
Children often learn how to infuse themselves at the age of eight or ten.
Then, the hemophiliac is able to treat himself at home, at school, at camp or on vacation. Hemophiliacs on home care go to the comprehensive care clinic once or twice a year for a complete check-up. The basic treatment to stop or prevent bleeding in people with hemophilia A and B is factor replacement therapy. In both cases, the Factor VIII or IX protein is nearly identical to the protein which is lacking in the blood of hemophiliacs. After an infusion of the concentrate, all the proteins needed for clotting are in place.