When we refer to ‘behaviours’ in terms of care provision, we are almost always talking about people with dementia, and we almost always mean something negative related to why a person refuses to see things our way. If you think about that sentence, we are the ones being illogical and stubborn – expecting someone with brain damage to behave as if they don’t have a condition beyond their control.
A word about dementia
Dementia is the progressive loss of memory, thinking skills, judgement, and verbal communication skills. It is a symptom in dozens of diseases, but the most common form is Alzheimer’s disease. Related to these are vascular dementia (or multi-infarct dementia) caused by small strokes and Lewy Body disease. Many people also have a combination of these. We have used the term ‘dementia’ in a general way throughout this course rather than distinguishing between the many forms, because it is more important to understand the unique individual who has dementia than to understand the form of dementia the person has.
A word about older adults without dementia
Although this course is aimed primarily at understanding behaviours in people with dementia, you may find that the guidelines work for people without cognitive handicaps as well. We all want to be understood, but we cannot always explain ourselves verbally. Behaviour is a form of communication.
This course will give you many tips on understanding why a person is acting as he or she is and will even address the possible root cause of the behaviour.
Please download and read the following Course Materials
DOWNLOAD COURSE MATERIALS (PDF)
Once you have read and understood the above Course Material please answer the following questions.
There are 48 multiple choice or true/false questions and you require a pass rate of 80%. Don’t worry if you fail first time as you can retake the test anytime, go back and read the course materials and when ready come back and begin the test again.
Please undertake the test in one session, allow approximately one hour.
