Tag Archives: compassionate touch

Compassionate Touch®, Hospital Professionals, Senior Care Professionals

Why Competency-Based Training Improves Dementia Care

February 20, 2018 Pam Brandon 1 Comment

There is an urgent need to equip caregivers to better respond to and care for persons living with dementia. Traditional training models have focused on the number of classroom hours an individual must spend in training, assuming that a person who completes the required training hours is ready to work successfully with people living with dementia. The shift to competency-based training improves dementia care by focusing on mastery of tasks and tools that are learned.

Competency-based learning empowers learners to focus on mastery of valuable skills and knowledge and learn by practicing. This can be valuable for direct care staff in applying techniques, tools and other skills with other staff and their care receivers.

General benefits of competency-based training include:

Greater understanding of learning outcomes by applying skills taught.
Increased retention and higher probability that what is taught will be applied
Learners’ improved ability to recognize, manage, and continuously build upon their own competencies and evidence of learning
Employers’ improved ability to track competencies and achievements

With growing focus on person-centered practices in dementia care, staff may gain knowledge training, but if it is not applied and practiced, the risk of “losing” the skills increases. Competency-based training includes assessments on whether a person has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and abilities required to work with individuals with dementia; understand how to support their dignity and individuality, and can apply his or her training to the unique needs of persons living with dementia.

We face challenges in equipping our workforce to deal with the unique needs of those living with dementia. As this number increases drastically, practical, feasible and effective tools for caregivers is urgently needed. They must be provided with more real-life training before they are asked to help people living with dementia and their families.

Competency-based dementia training should be integrated into every elder care providers’ ongoing training program.

Pam Brandon is President/Founder of AGE-u-cate Training Institute and a passionate advocate for older adults and those that serve them. Pam is the creator of the internationally recognized Dementia Live® simulation program.

http://www.AGEucate.com

Faith Community, Family Caregiver, Senior Care Professionals

How Can We Lovingly Embrace the Ending…Tips for Families

February 9, 2018 Pam Brandon Leave a comment

What is a harder conversation topic with elderly parents – money or death? If you guessed death, you get a gold star. Why do we find it so very difficult to discuss the inevitable? Surely we’ve all come to grips with the fact there is one thing certain about life and that is death. We can embrace the ending by learning to embrace the life that we still have with our loved ones until the times comes when they are no longer with us.

Often it is not death that frightens people but the process of death. Will there be pain, suffering and will it linger? Fear of the unknown often is what ties us up into a pretzel of NOT wanting to talk about the ending. What if we could learn to open up conversations so that everyone could be more prepared for the unknown, more accepting of death itself, and in turn make the process of dying a compassionate and loving experience? Sadly, too often I see insecurity indecisions and pain overtake what could be a sweet time of compassion, filled with memories in itself. Memories to embrace and treasure.

Most families have a considerable amount of unfinished business in this arena. Here are some tips on how to open doors of communication, come to grips with what some call a “long goodbye”, especially those living with dementia or other chronic illness, and certainly lastly how to make the goal of acceptance and compassion be first and foremost in all planning, decision-making, and conversations.

Make your wishes known. That means we listen to our loved ones, preferably long before we have to make difficult decisions for them. I want to interject here that we all need to understand that we should be guided by Plans A, B, and C – understanding the Life Plan A almost never is a reality. That said, as care partners and families we do our very best to fulfill those wishes, but many circumstances may make that impossible. Far too many times I’ve heard promised made to loved ones that they will be able to pass at home. When the time comes, and that is not able to be fulfilled the family member feels horrible guilt. Remember, we should be open and honest in lovingly expressing that we will do all we can to fulfill their wishes, but that it may not be possible for a number of reasons.
Spend more time embracing the moment of the ending rather than funeral plans. Why is it that we agonize over what songs will be sung and flowers delivered – when our loved one needs our compassionate hand to embrace and hold at this moment? Far too long we have gotten priorities a bit confused would you agree? What if we put that energy and emotion into what can be embraced int he here and now?
Remeber that one’s feelings and emotions remain intact, although declining, until the end of life. Response to touch, expression, love, music, even nature can have profound effects on the dying person. Talking “around” a dying person is as much a sign of disrespect as it is a sign that they’ve been dismissed as a person.

“Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.”
― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Pam Brandon is President/Founder of AGE-u-cate Training Institute and a passionate advocate for older adults and those who care for them. She is co-creator of the Compassionate Touch® program for end-of-life care. www.AGEucate.com

Dementia Live, Hospital Professionals, Senior Care Professionals

Award Wages for Aged Care Workers in Australia

November 7, 2017 Pam Brandon Leave a comment

Having just returned from Australia, I’ll be devoting several upcoming blogs to my research and fact finding with how Australia is advancing in aging and dementia care, as well as dementia and age friendly best practices. I found their award wages for aged care workers to be one significant difference from the US and worthy of discussion.

Award wages and workplace rights and responsibilities are managed by the Australian Government Fair Work Ombudsman. An employee’s minimum pay rate can come from an award, enterprise agreement, other registered agreement, or the national minimum wage.

Employees must be paid for all the hours they work including the time they spend in training, team meetings, opening and closing the business, and working unreasonable trial (what is equivalent to overtime in US) shifts.

An entry-level Aged Care Worker with less than 5 years of experience can expect to earn an average total compensation of AU$44,000. An Aged Care Worker with mid-career experience which includes employees with 5 to 10 years of experience can expect to earn an average total compensation of AU$46,000. An experienced Aged Care Worker which includes employees with 10 to 20 years of experience can expect to earn an average total compensation of AU$46,000. An Aged Care Worker with late-career experience which includes employees with greater than 20 years of experience can expect to earn an average total compensation of AU$48,000.

Although the healthcare and aged care systems differ from the US, I found that we are all experiencing the same challenges of a rapidly growing aging population. Workforce shortages, rising costs and changing policies are certainly a global concern.

Employee turnover in Australia is less significant than the US. While this is likely due to higher wages, they also have in place required training for all care workers, of which dementia care is included.

In late 2016 Dementia Training Australia rolled out Dementia Essentials which is delivered by Alzheimer’s Australia nationally.

The three-day course provides attendees with extensive knowledge of dementia, as well as focusing on person-centred practice, communication strategies, developing appropriate activities, and responding to unmet needs.

AGE-u-cate’s Dementia Live™️ and Compassionate Touch® programs have been overwhelmingly received in Australia and we are excited to be working with providers from across the country in expanding our presence in the coming year.

I learned that while we differ in how our “systems” work we all want to deliver high quality care to our aging populations. We all have challenges and are learning and growing from each other.

Next blog I’ll be talking about Australia’s amazing Men’s Shed program, so stay tuned!

Pam Brandon is President/Founder of AGE-u-cate® Training Institute and a passionate advocate for older adults and those that serve them.

www.AGEucate.com

Family Caregiver, Hospital Professionals, Senior Care Professionals

Caregiver’s Bill of Rights – Words of Guidance and Hope

August 25, 2017 Pam Brandon Leave a comment

Families caring for aging adults have and will continue to reach unprecedented numbers affecting every corner of our society. We MUST address the complex needs of this population who are the foundation of long-term care nationwide, exceeding Medicaid long-term care spending in all states (National Alliance for Caregiving and Overcare, March 2009). Jo Horne, author of Caregiving: Helping an Aging Love One created the Caregiver’s Bill of Rights. These are powerful and impactful words of hope and guidance for each and every person caring for a family member or friend:

I have the right . . .

To take care of myself. This is not an act of selfishness. It will give me the capacity to take better care of my relative.

To seek help from others even though my relative may object. I recognize the limits of my own endurance and strength.

To maintain facets of my own life that do not include the person I care for, just as I would if he or she were healthy. I know that I do everything that I reasonably can for this person, and I have the right to do some things for myself.

To get angry, be depressed, and express other difficult feelings occasionally.

To reject any attempt by my relative (either conscious or unconscious) to manipulate me through guilt, anger, or depression.

To receive consideration, affection, forgiveness, and acceptance for what I do for my loved one for as long as I offer these qualities in return.

To take pride in what I am accomplishing and to applaud the courage it has sometimes taken to meet the needs of my relative.

To protect my individuality and my right to make a life for myself that will sustain me in the time when my relative no longer needs my full-time help.

To expect and demand that as new strides are made in finding resources to aid physically and mentally impaired older persons in our country, similar strides will be made toward aiding and supporting caregivers.

To ___________________________________________________
(Add you own statement of rights to this list. Read the list to yourself every day.)

Pam Brandon is President/Founder of AGE-u-cate® Training Institute and a passionate advocate for older adults and those that serve them.