I have recently completed the European Certificate in Holistic Dementia Care, an eight-week distance learning course run through the Northern Ireland Hospice and various other sites throughout the UK and Ireland.
The work may have been hard and time consuming, but I now feel empowered to provide better care for people with dementia and see the real spirit behind each patient.
Many of our patients display challenging behaviour and we often lose sight of the real person behind the medicine and physiology. These patients may be a family member, a loved one, a hard working tough-slogger, a down-the-pub-story-teller, a backbone of the community type, a wheeler-dealer, a musician or a poet, but all that is forgotten behind the diagnosis of dementia.
I took this course as a core medical trainee, with only limited experience of dementia care and palliative care; the course is set up for all levels of knowledge and training and has provided me with a good basis to improve my practice in hospital and hospice settings.
The course was quite full-on from a time perspective, with a reasonable amount of personal learning and portfolio work over the eight weeks, ending in a final multiple choice exam.
The case study I chose to focus on allowed me to reflect on the care given to a patient, the difficulties that arose and how I could use my new knowledge in a real-time scenario to provide a better dementia care for the patient and their family circle.
A lack of understanding always held me back and made me unsure of how best to help dementia patients in my medical career. The situation is often complex, with difficult emotional and physical symptoms, carers can be very stressed and anxious, and I was often left feeling I could have done more to help.
From this course I have gained skills in assessing behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia and I am now more aware of non-pharmacological interventions that can help. Music, reminiscence therapy, cognitive activities and physical exercise all improve challenging behaviour, and seeing these in action through the online video resources helped understand the potential impacts these could have for my patients.
For me, this course worked well, as I could study from home whenever suited me. There was great support available from the online forum for any questions that arose. There was always a prompt answer with helpful advice from the course co-ordinators. The questions were visible to everyone, giving us a chance to learn from and discuss other participants queries or struggles.
This was a novel way to learn for me as I had not taken a distance learning course before, I had to be disciplined and organised to work around normal life. But the forum was helpful as I was able to get encouragement from other participants, and keep check on how far along everyone else was and not get left behind.
I have been encouraged now to think further about the care of dementia patients. I hope that many more people from nursing, medical, allied healthcare, private sector and community teams will hear about this course and feel inspired like I have been.
The whole aim of the course is to see the real person behind the dementia, understand the journey they and their carers are on and to identify and manage their needs.
It is too easy to box dementia sufferers together and forget the person behind the diagnosis;
“A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibilities, moral being – matters which neuropsychology cannot speak. And it is here, beyond the realm of an impersonal psychology, that you find ways to touch him and change him.” [An exert from Oliver Sacks’ book, The man who mistook his wife for a hat]
“My vision is that all hospices have some staff who have studied for this certificate”
The European Certificate in Holistic Dementia Care has been endorsed by Hospice UK and the charity’s clinical director Dr Ros Taylor hopes that the course, which is currently provided by five hospices in the UK and Ireland, will soon be offered by other hospices.
“Knowledge and confidence to support patients and families living and dying with dementia is increasingly expected of hospices,” explained Dr Taylor.
“Many hospices are using the Hospice UK publication ‘Hospice enabled dementia care – the first steps‘ to start planning their dementia services. However, a crucial step is to have clinical staff in place with additional expertise to lead change, and the European Certificate in Holistic Dementia Care is the perfect place to start.
“My vision is that all hospices have some staff who have studied for this certificate, which is endorsed by Hospice UK, and that more hospices throughout the UK actually become hubs to deliver the certificate locally. In this way they will have not only a new income stream, but can develop local leadership for person-centred dementia care not just in their own hospice but in local care homes too.
“The certificate is aimed at generalists – most of us are generalists when it comes to dementia – and we all need to learn more, and that includes hospice nurses and doctors, care home staff and GPs.”
Leave a Reply