MISSION:  Establish a Commonwealth-wide Training and Education program to disseminate well-validated knowledge on diagnosis, treatments, care, services, programs, resources or other practical information to various consumers, including family members, care providers, community leaders, primary care physicians, staff of long term care and assisted living facilities, and students in professional schools.

The education and training of both the family informal caregiver and the formal professional care provider are pervasive and continuing needs.  This is a particularly acute problem because of the dynamic and continuously evolving nature of knowledge on the diagnosis, treatment, and care people with the disease.  Practical information on how to cope with the most difficult behavioral problems both at home and in the institutional setting is being updated with emerging validated knowledge; such information needs to be disseminated widely and quickly.

The challenge for this core is to develop plans for a system to increase the level of practical and accurate knowledge in the community and to move new knowledge more rapidly from the 'bench to the bedside,' while recognizing the culturally diverse communities in the Commonwealth.

Work Plan:

This group is seeking to: identify all relevant existing resources within the Commonwealth, including the talents, expertise, and common scientific interests of the participating professionals, in order to link the expertise of different services and programs and of participating disciplines/professions; enlarge the group of participants; as the planning proceeds, invite an ever-expanding circle of resource people to assist in Virtual Center programs; evaluate and catalogue current human and material resources, services, and programs; and determine the needs for additional resources, services, and programs; prepare recommendations for programmatic actions and legislative initiatives.

Co-Chairs:

• Ayn Welleford, MD (Virginia Commonwealth University)

• Marilyn Pace Maxwell (Mountain Empire Older Citizens)

• Cathy Saunders (Alzheimer’s Association Greater Richmond Chapter)

Progress Report:

The Education core has focused on identifying existing resources and expertise.  The core solicited information from various groups across Virginia concerning:

1) suggestions for the names of resource people to be added to the core and,

2) listing of all types of training, educational activities, conferences, courses or workshops on dementia/ Alzheimer's training that are currently offered or available in Virginia. 

The request for information on current ongoing educational and training programs, service or activities yielded the following intelligence:

a)    a) Education and Training Programs Offered by the Alzheimer's Association Chapters of Virginia

These include:

1) Professional Training, such as a 12-hour Person-Centered Care dementia training, a four-hour Basic Skill-Building for Caregivers of People with Cognitive Impairment training, and Facility in-service training;

2) Family Training, such as monthly and individual family orientation programs;

3) Public Speaking, including speaker bureau presentations to community groups; and 

4) Other Resources, such as lending libraries, Helplines, and newsletters.

b) Education and Training Programs Offered by Mountain Empire Older Citizens (MEOC) – far Southwest Virginia

There is not an Alzheimer's Association chapter in far Southwest Virginia, but Mountain Empire Older Citizens (MEOC) coordinates closely with the Northeast Tennessee chapter to handle related duties in this part of the state.  MEOC provides such training in southwest Virginia as: 1) an Annual Alzheimer's Seminar; 2) two MEOC-sponsored 40 hour Geriatric Aide Training programs with a special segment on AD, open free to area caregivers; 3) a Family Caregivers Resource Library, open five days a week for drop-ins; and 4) The Mountain Empire News, MEOC's quarterly newspaper, circulation more than 13,500 area households, that contains a special Alzheimer's eight-page supplement in each edition.

c) The Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS)

The Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) conducts Alzheimer's training for law enforcement officers, jailers, dispatchers, and Commonwealth Attorneys.  Future training is planned for other public safety personnel and judicial officers. 

d) State-Level Collaborations to Provide Dementia-Related Training

The Virginia Geriatric Education Center (VGEC) and the Virginia Center on Aging (VCoA) at Virginia Commonwealth University have partnered with the Virginia Department for the Aging (VDA), the Nursing Assistant Institute (NAI), and the Alzheimer’s Association network of Chapters to provide dementia-related training across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

A three-phase training strategy was developed to include training programs that build on each other sequentially.  The overarching goal is to offer an array of complementary training opportunities to professionals and paraprofessionals who provide care-giving services.  The three training phases aim to: 

1) enhance the skills of caregivers across the spectrum of long term care,

2) improve the performance and job satisfaction of the nursing assistants who provide direct care, and

3) facilitate their career development through a job-focused intervention.

Phase I training was supported in 2002 and continues this year with appropriations from the General Assembly (through the Virginia Department of Social Services) to the Alzheimer’s Association Chapters in Virginia.  Phase II training began in the Fall of 2002 through a contract with NAI from VDA and is supported with funds from the federal Administration on Aging (DHHS), as part of the Alzheimer’s Disease Demonstration Grants to States Project.  That contract has been recently transferred to the Greater Richmond Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, and extended with funding for evaluation to the VCoA.  Phase III of the training collaborative will be conducted through the VGEC as part of its Case Management Initiative (funded under a million dollar grant from the Bureau of Health Professions, HRSA, DHHS).  In-kind support from the VCoA and the VGEC has enabled continuous and thorough evaluation of each Phase of the training since the inception of the collaborative venture.

Phase I trainees were evaluated using a pre-knowledge questionnaire, which asked for basic demographic information and included 10 knowledge-based questions; a post-knowledge questionnaire, consisting of 10 knowledge-based questions; and a “homework” survey, that asked for additional demographic data and included two short career-related questionnaires. A total of 802 trainees responded to both the pre-training and post-training questionnaires.  Statistical analyses indicate that participants achieved significant gains in knowledge overall.

Phase II’s training curriculum is designed to help nursing assistants (NA) become peer instructors. It is adapted from the manual “Speaking from Experience:  Nursing Assistants Share Their Knowledge of Dementia Care” developed by Cobble Hill Health Center, Inc., which emphasizes tips for trainers, fundamentals of learning, methods of teaching, person-centered care, communication skills, and more. NAs who deliver in-services to peers in their facilities are expected to show improvements with respect to two fundamental concepts:  job satisfaction and sense of professionalism. 

Phase III features the Virginia Geriatric Education Center, whose job-focused training initiative concentrates on enhancing the work environment to promote balance between desired residential services and the provision of those services.  The over-arching focus of the curriculum is care management, and individual modules concentrate on important related topics such as stress management, professional behavior, dealing with difficult behaviors, and end of life issues. 

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