Maplewood employees use ‘unofficial’ supportive measures
Friday, October 13, 2006 -- Natalie Miller
BRIGHTON A maintenance manager takes the initiative to learn German so he can better connect with a resident who speaks the language.

Care workers adjusted their routines to suit a resident who needs a nap after lunch and a 2:20 p.m. wake-up call.

Gestures like these illustrate to supportive measures specialist Chris Charlebois Maplewood staff members are already employing techniques taught through OMNI’s dementia care education program. While Chris is the only supportive measures specialist at the Brighton long-term care home, she says others are instinctively employing supportive measures which will make her job training others easier.

“I’ve got a big challenge ahead of me,” says Chris.

“I’m excited about rolling it out.”

OMNI unveiled last week details of its corporate strategy to ensure all employees are trained in supportive measures by the end of 2007. Supportive measures specialists gathered in Peterborough to hear more about how each home will roll out the supportive measures training program.

During four days of the first two weeks of July, 53 OMNI employees took training to equip them with the skills to help them educate everyone in their respective homes in supportive measures.

Supportive measures is a practice whereby caregivers focus on individual needs and preferences of residents living with Alzheimer disease or related dementia. By identifying factors that trigger resident disease-related agitation, interventions can be put in place to remove many of these factors from the resident's daily life and reduce the need for psychotropic medications.

“Here, it’s going to be starting with the basics,” says Chris about her training strategy at the long-term care home. “It’s being done, it’s just not official. (Employees) do all kinds of things for the residents. It’s just making them aware they’re on the right track,” she says.

Chris was unable to attend the recent supportive measures gathering but says she will meet one-on-one with Shawn Riel, the operations employee who is heading up supportive measures.

At the meeting, supportive measures specialists learned they will be responsible to send a letter out to all employees addressing the goals of supportive measures education in their respective homes. A staff survey will be distributed to determine what level of exposure each staff member has had to supportive measures. In January, the training of staff is scheduled to begin.

At Maplewood, Chris plans to provide one-on-one education during shift changes. As well, with the support of administrator Betty Brisco, they’re organizing a training day Oct. 18 with the assistance of a psychogeriatric outreach team to educate staff about dementia through a series of simulation exercises.