• Two/Three days

Target group:

• The course will be contextualised on the basis of the people attending so as to be made relevant to staff working in either field social work, day care, residential, home care settings or volunteers.

Synopsis of the Programme:

The Theory

• The Ageing process.
• Confusion as a common symptom of illness in elderly people.
• Acute and chronic confusion.
• The dementia's concentrating on Alzheimer's Disease and Multi-Infarct Dementia and early on-set Dementia.
• The brain and behaviour - what happens in dementia.

Meeting the Needs of the Person with Dementia:

• Exercise which simulates the experience of dementia to better understand how we can help people with dementia feel valued, important and appreciated.
• Exercises to learn how we can communicate successfully with people with dementia.
• Reminiscence and music - their role in improving the quality of life of people with dementia.
• Group exercises to explore ways in which we can involve people with dementia more fully in their daily living and in the decisions about their daily living.

The Context of Care:

• The role of relatives.
• Models of care and how they affect the way in which we behave in different settings.
• The relationship between relatives and professional staff.

Practice Issues

• Assessment and care planning.
• The development of strategies which enable us to cope better with some of the behaviours which we find challenging.
• Dealing with wandering, violence and aggression, and sexually inappropriate behaviour.
• Taking care of ourselves.

The Objectives:

• To provide an understanding of different common forms of dementia, how it affects the brain and hence behaviour.
• To help staff develop their skills to provide services for elderly people with dementia including assessment and care planning.
• To explore some of the very difficult issues and dilemmas we all face in trying to provide the very best of services for people with dementia.
• To introduce a person centred approach to service delivery including an introduction of ideas of Tom Kitwood.
• To introduce a framework which can be used to help deal with situations which are challenging.
• To develop an understanding of how it might feel to suffer from dementia.
• To develop strategies for behaviours which are difficult to manage.
• To develop an understanding of needs of caring relatives.
• To develop an understanding that in any decisions made regarding risk, it is important to assess the effect on the rights of the person with dementia.
• To develop strategies for more effective communication with people with dementia.
• To establish how music, reminiscence and validation can be used to improve the quality of life of a person with dementia.
• To help staff to understand that they are doing a very difficult job, which for the most part is undertaken well; that give the nature of this job it is likely from time to time that staff will experience stress; that to acknowledge their experience of stress does not reflect on their capabilities and to provide some strategies to help manage stress better.