Improving dementia care in assisted living residences: addressing staff reactions to training.
More than 1 million older adults, many with significant cognitive impairment, receive care in assisted living residences (ALRs), and their numbers are increasing. Despite this, ALR staff are often inadequately trained to manage the complex emotional, behavioral, and functional impairments characteristic of these residents. Nurses are in a unique position to improve this situation by training and supervising ALR staff. To facilitate such training, an understanding of staff reactions to receiving training as well as a systematic yet flexible method for training is needed. This article provides information on one such program (STAR-Staff Training in Assisted-living Residences), discusses challenges that arose when offering this program across 3 states in 6 diverse ALRs (rural, urban, for-profit, and not-for-profit sites), and describes how these challenges were addressed. We illustrate how nurses can successfully train ALR staff to improve resident and staff outcomes and offer guidance for those interested in providing such training.
Teri
Linda
L
Department of Psychosocial and Community Health, University of Washington School of Nursing, Seattle, WA 98195-8733, USA. lteri@u.washington.edu
McKenzie
Glenise L
GL
LaFazia
David
D
Farran
Carol J
CJ
Beck
Cornelia
C
Huda
Piruz
P
van Leynseele
June
J
Pike
Kenneth C
KC
D000328:Adult; D040561:Assisted Living Facilities; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003704:Dementia / Q000451:nursing*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology*; D015397:Program Evaluation