Caring for the Person with Dementia: A Training Program for Direct Care Staff

This training program for direct care staff  teaches important elements in best Habilitation Therapy practices, focusing on four key areas:

•  Understanding Alzheimer's and Dementia: Caring for the Person
• Communication: We Need to Know the Language
•  Behavior as Communication: Understanding and Responding
• Understanding and Working with Families

Modules include a PowerPoint presentation, discussion activities, lecture and demonstration, role-play and group work.

The life of the person with Alzheimer’s disease once was defined as revolving entirely around inevitable loss. Another view of Alzheimer’s disease has emerged in which individuals respond to their disease according to how supportive their environments are. 

Developing a better understanding of how a person thinks, feels, communicates, compensates, and responds to change, to emotion, to love—may bring some of the biggest breakthroughs in treatment. The primary goal of habilitation therapy is to promote a positive emotion in the person with dementia by maximizing their strengths and abilities and minimizing their limitations.

Funding for this training is provided by the University of New England Maine Geriatric Education Center which is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Grant # UB4HP19207