DEMENTIA CARE TRAINING FOR SUPPORT WORKERS

Dementia is a disorder affecting brain function and a term describing symptoms of cognitive impairment that can affect a person's memory, thinking, reasoning, behaviour, personality and ability to communicate.

While dementia is commonly associated with the elderly, it isn't a natural part of aging. In Australia it is estimated there are around 460,000 diagnosed people (AIHW, 2020), and approximately 28,000 people are younger than 65 years (Dementia Australia, 2021). Dementia can happen to people in their thirties and people with intellectual disability (ID) are at increased risk.

We select our Premium Health trainers and assessors carefully, as such our dementia programs will only ever be conducted by an experienced nurse. There can be no better trainer than one who has "lived" experience of supporting people who have dementia.

Some of the topics include:

• different types and causes of dementia
• progression and stages of dementia
• care goals across the stages
• balancing duty of care and dignity of risk
• providing purposeful activities
• providing respectful personal support
• providing support with nutrition and feeding
• avoiding and dealing with challenging behaviour
• paranoia, delusions, hallucinations and misidentification
• agitation, wandering, sundowning
• documenting support and observations