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Foundational changes to improve dementia care: Implementing person‐centered, dementia‐specific education for nursing assistant programs

Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Nursing assistants are responsible for direct care of individuals living with dementia in long‐term care (LTC) settings. Due to their cognitive impairment, care activities often cause behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), such as stress, fear, agitation, and anger. Most states, including Arizona, do not require nursing assistant (NA) training programs to provide dementia‐specific content, despite >50% of all LTC residents having dementia. The purpose of this project was to design and integrate dementia‐specific curriculum into NA programs through training the trainer. The curriculum was designed to be easily implemented in NA programs with the goal of changing the way the state educates NAs. Training was provided to 12 RNs that identified as NA program coordinators or instructors in Arizona. All 12 trainees were female, ranging in age from 30s ‐70s, 83% identified as Caucasian, 8% Latino, and 8% African American. A complete, portable didactic lesson and a lab lesson were provided, consisting of dementia basics, person‐centered care, dementia simulation, teaching techniques, and two complete one‐hour lessons to implement in the classroom after the training. Knowledge and confidence were tested pre/post‐training and barriers to implementation were assessed at one‐month follow‐up. Knowledge increased from 4±1.15 to 6.75±0.43 (t = ‐7.63, p<.001). Confidence increased from 6.64±1.63 to 9.27±0.79(t = ‐4.34, p = .001) on knowledge confidence, from 6.55±1.63 to 9.18±0.87 (t = ‐4.14, p = .002) on teaching techniques, from 6.36±1.21 to 9.27±0.79 (t = ‐5.67, p<.001) on teaching dementia‐specific content, from 6.09±1.22 to 9.18±0.87 (t = ‐5.65, p<.001) on integrating dementia‐specific skills into lab and clinical, and 6.27±1.19 to 9.36±0.81 (t = ‐6.25, p<.001) on integrating dementia‐specific education into course content. At one month follow‐up, all participants planned to or already had implemented the training into their curriculum. Trainees increased their knowledge and confidence to successfully implement person‐centered, dementia‐specific education into their NA programs without barriers. In addition, this project gained support to change the NA program curriculum in 2023 to require dementia‐specific education for all NA programs in the state, thus changing practices for front‐line healthcare workers in the state.
DOI: 10.1002/alz.073325
Language: English
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4390201201
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