Aged care learns about dementia online
A new online dementia learning resource aims to achieve practice improvement in the workplace among residential and community carers who play a key role in the lives of people living with dementia.
Victorian Premier, Denis Napthine, speaks at the Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria's Dementia Learning Online resource launch at Parliament House this week.
Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria launched the resource, Dementia Learning Online, this week at the fourth biennial Victorian Parliamentary Friends of Dementia meeting at Parliament House.
Maree McCabe, Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria chief executive, says the Dementia Learning Online is an innovative and accessible education resource that will go a long way to supporting and enhancing the quality of care provided to the estimated 320,000 people with dementia in Australia.
“This is a significant step by Alzheimer’s Australia Vic to ensure the increasing numbers of carers in Australia are well trained, better informed and best equipped to provide all people living with dementia the highest quality of care that they deserve,” Ms McCabe says.
She adds that, as the number of people with dementia rapidly rises as Australia’s population ages, improving the quality of care through best practice training is imperative.
“The intention of launching the online learning resource is to demonstrate the importance of aged care providers in their electorates to aim for best practice dementia care for all staff levels in the care system,” she says.
It will also encourage aged care providers to adopt the training tool in their professional development program for all staff members.
The online education resource features four modules that are designed to be user friendly, practical and can be completed in less than one hour. Themes focused on throughout the modules range from an introduction to dementia to expectations for service delivery, and enhancing communication skills to adopting effective strategies to help prevent or minimise the impact of behaviour.
Throughout the online modules, participants will be asked to think about and reflect on their practice, then answer a series of questions that will contribute to practice improvement in the workplace.
Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria’s Learning and Development courses are attended by more than 14,000 people each year, with the goal of increasing this reach through the introduction of Dementia Learning Online.
Dementia Learning Online is an Alzheimer’s Australia resource produced with the support of the federal government. For more information on Dementia Learning Online, go to www.dementialearning.org.au
