Participants should be aware of the following financial/non-financial relationships:
Stacey Starling, PhD: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Cathy Sunlin, MS, RN, NHA: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Core Dementia Care™ (CDC) is a sustainable education imperative; a QAPI training model that will improve individualized care and enhance person-centered dementia capable culture in skilled nursing facilities and assisted living centers. Enhanced care outcomes are accomplished by enabling staff to effectively modify care and support strategies to discover what contributes to the resident with dementia feeling content, engaged, and enriched in everyday life. It is a strength-based approach to care that focuses on observational skills and structuring activities of daily living to remaining abilities. This care experience requires qualified staff that demonstrate the competencies, skills, and attitudes to implement individualized approaches to care that are directed toward understanding, preventing, relieving, and/or accommodating a resident’s distress or loss of abilities. Learned strategies improve efforts to prevent or avoid unnecessary pain and suffering for the resident with dementia. The robust sustainability model underpins internal training expertise. Facility-based trainers carry out the program curriculum within a coaching model. Early impact data demonstrates that residents receiving care with Core Dementia Care™ strategies have experienced improved cooperation with ADLs, decreased depression, and decreased verbal and physical behaviors disruptive to other residents. Staff participants report improvement in observational skills, the ability to assess residents’ needs, and the ability to select the appropriate strategies to keep residents engaged and minimize upset. Furthermore, staff also report enhanced confidence in addressing resident representative concerns and the ability to regulate their own personal stress and well-being. Providing Core Dementia Care™ for residents living with dementia is an integral part of the person-centered care environment.
Learning Objectives:
Differentiate Core Dementia Care™ (CDC) from other dementia care education.
Identify three experiential activities that examine Core Dementia Care™ key concepts.
Describe Core Dementia Care™ as a sustainable education imperative.