QUICK OVERVIEW
Interventions to Improve the Nursing Care of People with Dementia in Canadian Hospitals: An Environmental Scan. Moody, E.1, Jamieson, H.1, Bradbury, K.1, Rothfus, M.2, Khanna, I.1, Weeks, L.1, Belliveau, A.3, Bilski, T.4 1. School of Nursing, Dalhousie University. 2. W.K Kellogg Health Science Library, Dalhousie University. 3. Dementia Family Advisor, Halifax, NS, Canada. 4 Professional Practice Lead-Interprofessional Practice & Learning, Nova Scotia Health, Canada.
Go directly to Coach Mariam’s Story.
For the 2020 | 2021 AGE Recognition Awards, we are celebrating resilience. We asked GPA Certified Coaches to send us their GPA stories from the point of care during the pandemic. Celebrating these stories is our way of paying tribute to the incredible resilience of GPA Certified Coaches and their teams across Canada over the past 2+ years.
Read Coach Mariam’s Story from Trillium Health Partners in Southern Ontario.
Teaching Tenderness: AGE Inc. improves long-term care with Gentle Persuasive Approaches (GPA).
April Morganti, AGE Executive Director and Lisa Wauchope, AGE Clinical Education and Training Specialist, recently sat down with Jennifer Prescott of Dementia Connections magazine to talk about the Gentle Persuasive Approaches (GPA) dementia care curriculum, the pressing need for this type of education for everyone who works with older adults, as well as AGE’s entry into the world of virtual education during the pandemic.
Go directly to Coach Tabatha’s GPA Story from the Point of Care.
For the 2020 | 2021 AGE Recognition Awards, we are celebrating resilience. We asked GPA Certified Coaches to send us their GPA stories from the point of care during the pandemic. Celebrating the stories they sent is our way of paying tribute to the incredible resilience of GPA Certified Coaches across Canada over the past 2+ years.
Read Coach Tabatha Gallant’s story from Summerside, PEI here.
Go directly to Coach Sandra’s GPA Story from the Point of Care.
For the 2020 | 2021 AGE Recognition Awards, we are celebrating resilience. We asked GPA Certified Coaches to send us their GPA stories from the point of care during the pandemic. Celebrating these stories is our way of paying tribute to the incredible resilience of GPA Certified Coaches and their colleagues over the past 2+ years.
2022 Ontario Personal Support Worker (PSW) Standard recommends GPA Best Practice Strategies and Person-Centred Approaches to mitigate and/or deescalate
responsive behaviours in dementia care.
HAMILTON, ONTARIO, February 2022 — Advanced Gerontological Education (AGE) Inc. is a national not-for-profit non-funded social enterprise based in Hamilton, Ontario. Its mission is to enhance the care of older adults living with dementia. Our main product is the Gentle Persuasive Approaches (GPA) in Dementia Care curriculum for care providers and healthcare students. In the Government of Ontario, Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities 2022 Personal Support Worker (PSW) Standard (41469) GPA’s Best Practice Strategies and Person-Centred Approaches are recommended for use by PSWs in the care setting to mitigate and/or deescalate responsive behaviours, as directed by the plan of care and in accordance with all legislation in the Long-Term Care Homes Act, 2007 and Retirement Homes Act, 2010.
All PSW programs in Ontario are required to follow these education standards set out by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges & Universities.
Don’t miss the powerful qualitative comments pre- and post-GPA education from healthcare students who participated in this evaluation of GPA eLearning. They talk about the incredible difference GPA has made to their knowledge, skills and confidence when working with persons exhibiting responsive behaviours.
Up to 45% of older adults living with dementia admitted to hospital exhibit responsive behaviours (Dewing & Dijk, 2016; Keenan et al., 2011; Nayton et al., 2014), risking injury for both patients and caregivers. Staff struggle to manage responsive behaviours without specific education. Between 2016 and 2017, GPA eLearning was disseminated to interdisciplinary staff on five medicine units at London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario, Canada, as part of a broader dementia-care quality improvement project at the hospital.
GPA eLearning participants were asked to complete online quantitative and qualitative questionnaires on self-efficacy, competence and dementia care knowledge at three points: before, immediately after and 6 to 8 weeks after their GPA eLearning. Focus groups were conducted to further explore participants’ experiences with GPA elearning.
In January 2022, the findings from the evaluation were published in SAGE Journals. Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice. Read the abstract here. Open access pending.
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Special Mention: AGE Inc. extends its sincere thanks to Jacqueline Crandall, Nurse Practitioner and Laurie McKellar, Nurse Practitioner (retired) at London Health Sciences Centre for their role in making this important GPA research possible.
Citation: Crandall, J., Coatsworth-Puspoky, R., Schlegel, K., Beker, L., McLelland, V. C., & Schindel Martin, L. (2022). Implementing Gentle Persuasive Approaches dementia education for staff on in-patient medicine units: A program evaluation. Dementia, 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F14713012211070148
Go directly to the Press Release.
Advanced Gerontological Education (AGE) Inc. is extremely proud to announce the 10th year in its important dementia education partnership with Sheridan College. The first GPA Certified Coaches (CC) at Sheridan were certified in 2012. Every year since, on-site Coaches who are typically staff at the College deliver the Gentle Persuasive Approaches (GPA) dementia-care curriculum to each new student cohort. Learn about GPA at Sheridan in our Press Release.
Go directly to the published research.
AGE Inc. recently published collaborative research in Perspectives, the Journal of the Canadian Gerontological Nursing Association (CGNA).
Four nurse researchers independently reviewed de-identified video segments of three patients living with dementia. Each reviewer watched the segments twice, and each time they documented the behaviours observed during one-minute intervals using numerical ratings from the Dementia Observation System (DOS). Test-retest and inter-rater reliability were assessed to establish the utility of the DOS for comparison with the multi-sensor predictive system.
Results indicated that the DOS has substantial test-retest reliability and moderate inter-rater reliability. Both types of reliability were higher for ratings of behaviour type and intensity than ratings associated with contextual variables. A system that predicts responsive behaviours will help caregivers develop a plan of care for people living with dementia, which may reduce the burden of caregivers.
Learn more: Reliability of Nurses’ Use of a Direct Behavioural Observation Tool in the Dementia Context: Implications for Development of Predictive System of Behavioural Assessment. Newman, K., Schindel Martin, L., McLelland, V., Wang, A., Au Duong, J., Khan, S.S., Ye, B., Spasojevic, S., Iaboni, A., Mihailidis, A., (2021). Perspectives. Journal of the Canadian Gerontological Nursing Association (CGNA). Vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 13-21. View the PDF.
Drum roll please! Our Executive Director, April Morganti, announces this years recipients. Watch the video.
