3 thoughts on “Fixing dementia care

  1. Thanks so much for sharing this program.I have been sharing it with my collegues. The program is contains much food for thought and will be useful as a discussion point for staff education purposes.

  2. I agree with the points the film is making – unfortunately, this is how many homes are run, not only in the UK but also in Australia. The task oriented ways of working with people are failing miserably with residents, especially if they have dementia and no insight into the nurses’ work load, and although management is paying lip service to a “person centred approach”, in the end what really counts is, how many showers every nurse was able to achieve, and if all the beds are made. Most staff have no idea how to work with residents in a fun and creative way, and looking at their wages, they usually are quite happy to accept different work, so the staff turnover is horrendous, and only a few who have genuine feelings for the residents, remain. Unfortunately, they are not able to change the culture of the facility and are overwhelmed by the endless stream of unskilled staff, who often does not even speak the language of the residents.
    There are person centred ways of treating residents, but this can only be achieved with adequate staff training, recreational activities, which need to be supervised often on a 1:1 basis, and adequate staffing levels, especially in the recreational areas. Unfortunately, in Australia, the ACFI (a resident classification tool) has eliminated recreational activities from their point system, so no nursing home gets any points for providing rec officers anymore, which results in even less attempts to engage with residents.

  3. Thank you for this short video. It well worth a watch for all providers of care and something to spark genuine discussion and debate- well done!

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