Education
Comfort Care Rounds
Comfort Care Rounds, originally Pain Rounds, were requested and attended by the registered staff in the evaluation LTC homes. However, in recognizing the staff’s interest in the broader issues of providing palliative care, Comfort Care Rounds were developed to not only address pain management but all aspects that palliative care encompasses. Also with the expanded focus, the all members multidisciplinary team, including palliative care volunteers, were invited to attend.
Communication at End-of-Life Utilizing Simulation Technology
Personal Support Workers identified the need to improve their skill and comfort communicating with residents and families about EOL issues. To address this need, an educational intervention was developed using a high fidelity simulation lab. A simulation lab uses high fidelity manikins (with laptops, software, and compressors) to provide a realistic experience of being at a resident’s bedside. The resident (manikin) can communicate and has fully functioning blood pressure, pulse point, respiratory and cardiac sounds, as well as a chest that rises and falls with breathing. A case study was designed for use in the simulation lab so PSWs could further develop their skills talking to residents and families about palliative care / end-of-life care in a controlled and safe environment. The simulation experience and the debriefing session at the end of the simulation gave PSWs the opportunity to learn from each other. This intervention proved effective based on a pre and post survey as well as a post interviews.
Educational Blueprint
This toolkit for planning palliative care education has been designed with a focus on the competencies needed for providing quality palliative care in long term care. The thirteen competency areas are generic competencies needed by long term care home staff as a whole in order to effectively deliver quality palliative care to residents and their family members.
When Someone Close to You is Dying - What You Can Expect and How You Can Help
This brochure was created and is distributed by the National Initiative for the care of the Elderly. This tool can be used to provide families in order to support them in better understanding the dying process and what to expect throughout the process.
Palliative Care for Front Line Workers
Palliative Care for Front Line Workers is a course delivered through the Centre for Education and Research on Aging & Health (CERAH) at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay Ontario. This course includes 10 modules and can be delivered face to face or by distance.
Hospice Visits
A hospice visit is where a staff member from a long term home visits and shadows staff at a hospice for a period of time. They are to work alongside and possibly provide care together with the hospice staff. For more information on how to setup Hospice Visits for long term care staff please see the Hospice Vists Module below.
Palliative Approach In-Service
The following education module was created as an introduction to the palliative care approach for staff working in long term care homes. This in-service will:
- Focus on the difference between palliative care and end-of-life care in a long term care context.
- Highlight that people are not palliative, but care can be palliative
- Explain how restorative care and palliative care can be complimentary and contribute to quality resident-centred care.
- Offer suggestions on how to identify if a resident could benefit from palliative care.
- Describe the current stigma around palliative care and offer sugges-tions on how staff may overcome this when talking to residents and family members.
- Allow long term care staff to think critically about the policies and procedures in their home and how they effect resident centred and palliative care.
Spirituality In-Service
Participants in this workshop will have the following learning outcomes:
- Appreciation of the need for spiritual care delivery in long term care especially with residents who are in need of palliative and end-of-life care.
- Understanding that spirituality is an everyday way of being. We live our lives from a spiritual perspective. We use it as a daily support, as it plays out in our daily actions. It can even be seen in the manner in which physical care is provided at bedside.
- Highlighting the importance of Front Line Workers who provide care to residents with kindness, compassion, empathy and respect, often feeling like family members of the residents.
Still Alice Book Chat
The major goal of the book chat was to bring families and staff together to talk about dementia through the lens of a book.
- Readers build empathy and understanding for people with dementia by following the protagonist’s experience
- The book chat provides an opportunity to discuss care for people in the later stages of dementia
- The book chat discussion allows one to explore the family member’s experience surrounding a loved one’s diagnosis of dementia
Train and Sustain: A Model for Spiritual Support & Palliative Care Volunteers in Long Term Care
This module is intended to support long term care homes when training spiritual and palliative care support.
