Health and Well-being in Dementia Care for Nurses

This session explores how to ensure optimal physical health and emotional well-being for people living with dementia. It will look at ways to prevent, and ensure early detection of, pain, falls, fatigue, dehydration and hunger. It describes ways to support the person to maintain personal hygiene and appearance. In promoting emotional well-being, it focuses on understanding behaviour as an expression of unmet need and the limited role for medication in helping someone who feels distressed.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Know how to support people living with dementia to maintain optimal physical health, personal hygiene and appearance
• Know how to improve nutrition and hydration and the meal time experience
• Discuss how you might prevent and ensure early detection of, pain, falls, fatigue, dehydration and hunger
• Know how to ensure optimal wellbeing for the person living with dementia by recognising emotional distress as an expression of unmet need and providing access to a range of community service and psychosocial interventions
• Understand the role of family in ensuing optimal physical and mental health

In this session, we will explore the need for strategies to promote health and well-being amongst people living with dementia and consider how family members can be included in such measures.

This session has been mapped to the Dementia Training Standards Framework and is designed to support the Dementia Action Alliance Dementia Statements.