Are Your Convention Members looking for ways to: 

• Reduce Staff Turnover and Burnout?
• Re-energize their Residents?
• Re-motivate their Staff?
• Build Positive Relations with local community?

Virtual Dementia Tour Kit

Caring for another human being requires a special kind of person. A person who is empathetic, patient and kind. But how can a person who cares for our elders be empathetic when they have never experienced old age in it's fragile state? The experiences of our elder population are the only ones that we, as caregivers have never lived through. Yet, we make decisions for and about our elders as though we know what they are coping with. Lessening the chasm between us and our elders will give us a greater chance of meeting their needs. We all know that we help others better when we can identify with them or maybe even have had a similar experience.

Since caregivers have never personally experienced the physical limitations of aging, dementia or life in an elder care community, becoming sensitized by means of special training is essential to provide good care.

The Virtual Dementia Tour (VDT) Kit will help you sensitize your staff to the issues of your residents which results in better care. This powerful training tool is the offspring of a study conducted in elder care communities. The findings were so incredible that a kit was designed to assist you in replicating a heightened level of sensitivity in your own facility. The VDT simulates Dementia as well as some of the physical problems associated with aging.

The kit includes:

This kit can be used as a training tool for new employees as well as a sensitivity training tool for all staff. This kit is also be helpful as an ongoing training tool. The fact that the results of the VDT can be tabulated after you have administered it makes it easy for you to track results and measure change over time.

If you are looking for an innovative, hands on training program that will directly impact your staff, the VDT is what you have been looking for.

Be Prepared To See Staff Attitudes Change

When you give your staff the opportunity to walk in their residents shoes the empathy and patience they feel toward their residents is immediate. A few of the statements made by staff immediately following the VDT were:

"We take too much for granted."

"Humbling."

"I will take more time with the residents."

"I felt very vulnerable, alone and helpless."

"I have a better understanding of our residents"

"I will try harder."

"Eye Opener."

"At least I knew it would be over soon and I could go back to normal.
Our residents have to live with it every day."

Virtual Dementia Tour Findings

94% stated that it is necessary to be sensitized to our elders to provide good care.

Our expectations are too high. Participants completed 2.5 out of 5 tasks on average.

Behaviors exhibited by participants were coping strategies but those same behaviors are considered inappropriate or bizarre when exhibited by residents.

There was a 31% increase in staff understanding of the residents after the VDT.

55% of the participants feel that residents do not get the care they need.

40% gave up on the VDT and 25% made negative self statements suggesting that if the environment and care is not what the residents needs, the conditions are ripe for depression and withdrawal.

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