title: Geriatric patient simulations for dental hygiene.
abstract: The rapidly increasing number of this country's elderly requires that dental hygiene students practice the clinical problem-solving skills of information gathering, assessment, and treatment applied to geriatric patients. Computer-based simulations are purported to provide this experience, but little research has been completed with simulations in the education of dental hygienists. This paper summarizes the process used to design, develop, and evaluate a series of eighteen computer-based geriatric simulated patients. It contains a brief description of the simulations and a description of the design, validation, authoring, and formative evaluation phases. The paper also describes the summative evaluation, provides implementation suggestions, and summarizes future directions. The summative evaluation, conducted at four institutions, suggests that computer-based simulations are an effective instructional method as measured by pre/post-tests. The results suggest that simulations can provide a standardized set of geriatric patient experiences. These simulations may prove especially valuable at institutions that are unable to provide clinical geriatric experiences or lack the expertise to conduct a didactic course in geriatrics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, Radiology, and Medicine, University of Iowa, College of Dentistry, Iowa City 52242, USA. Lynn-Johnson@uiowa.edu
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Finkelstein
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Hand
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D003663:Decision Trees; D016321:Dental Care for Aged; D003756:Dental Hygienists / Q000193:education*; D004496:Education, Continuing; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005246:Feedback; D005544:Forecasting; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000193:education; D006801:Humans; D008487:Medical History Taking; D009735:Nursing Homes; D011331:Private Practice; D011340:Problem Solving; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012985:Software Design; D012986:Software Validation