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Older Adults/EMI
We are all going to get old one day, it is an unavoidable process. With age many people will develop behavioural difficulties alongside their physiological difficulties. Furthermore cognitive decline and its associated confusion can be a terrifying experience. We endorse the approaches of the late Professor Tom Kitwood who argued that services should attempt to understand an older adult from their unique and individual perspective. An essential aim of our approach is to encourage staff to support the person and manage their behaviour in a dignified way. Although it may sound like a 'cliché' most of us will become customers of elderly care services one day. If we ask the question 'how would I like to be treated' the answer will usually involve good behaviour management approaches.
As with all Studio 3 training the three day course for staff who care for Older Adults is research based. This course was based on the findings of a dedicated research project, undertaken by Studio 3, in which a Profile Information Document (PIC) was compiled. This document comprised a set of questions and answers and staff responses to them. The most common types of physical assaults (slapping, punching and grabbing) and verbal abuse experienced by staff, were compared to research literature. The team also examined service policies, incident data and other relevant records of staff turnover and injuries.
In developing this course particular attention was given to the amount of physical skills that would be required. It is always Studio 3's philosophy to keep the use of physical skills to an absolute minimum. The physical skills that are taught on this course are based on movement and are variations of procedures originally developed by Studio 3 for other courses. They have been specially designed to meet the needs of Older Adults as all other physical intervention techniques were deemed to be inappropriate.
In order to reduce the number of incidents which escalate to a level where physical skills are needed (when there is a serious threat of injury to either staff member or service user) great emphasis has been placed on the use of 'Low Arousal approaches', Validation Therapy and defusion and distraction techniques.
During the piloting stage of developing this course, pre- and post-course measures of staff confidence and tolerance of challenging behaviours were taken and pre- and post-training incident reports were compared. Improved trends in all areas were recorded.
