The Effectiveness of Training Care Home Staff on Management of Persons with Dementia - Literature review Example

 This section of the dissertation, therefore, reviews related literature that touches on some of the key innovative ways of addressing challenging behaviour through training in three major areas as reviewed below. 2.1 Non-Pharmacological Approaches to Managing Dementia 2.1.1 Psychosocial intervention for managing dementia Recent studies have actually pointed to the realisation that training in the use of psychosocial intervention for managing dementia is an effective way of handling challenging behaviour in dementia patients (Cohen-Mansfield, Libin & Marx, 2007).

The singular reason for the effectiveness of the psychosocial intervention is in the fact that it is multi-active and thus makes use of several approaches that address multi-complexity issues about the patient. For instance, as part of the psychosocial intervention, social, individual as well as environmental factors of the causes of the challenging behaviour may all be catered for in one pile (Davison, et al, 2007). In a very modern perspective, this intervention could be judged as highly viable because dementia as a cognitive problem does not associate its cause with just one risk factor.

This means that the kind of interventions that are prescribed for its solutions must also well be varying in nature like psychosocial interventions. Indeed, practitioners who receive training and education in psychosocial intervention in managing dementia would come to the realisation that their patients are as much relevant in the solution as the caregivers themselves. This way, the practitioners would not see patients who put up challenging behaviour as elements of problems that must be avoided but rather as companions for a common goal who should be aided to come to terms with how best they can play their part in the solution. 2.1.

2 Individualized interventions for patients Even though most commentators have rooted for the use of standardised interventions for handling problematic patients who exhibit challenging behaviour as part of the dementia symptoms, there continue to be some modern researchers who believe interventions for catering for problematic dementia patients should be individualised (O'Connor et al, 2009). By individualised interventions, reference is being made to that kind of approach that sees each patient among the lot as a distinguishably different person who demands a personalised approach to his or her problems (McCabe, Davison & George, 2007).

Relating to this training and education for caregivers, it is said that the trainee should first and foremost possess an attitude that recognises the peculiarity of each person and must have a very huge heart to accommodate all such differences. This means that the trainee ought to adapt him or herself in such a way that he or she would use a kind of communication that meets the understanding of the patient. There should also be practical management strategies that focus on the needs of the patient.

Finally, it is important to recognise the need to have enough patience for patients to recover at their own rate.