ThirdAge Services LLC

Virtual Dementia Experience

Participants in the Virtual Dementia Experience will undergo a thought changing, life changing experience. Company executives should take this opportunity to see how to improve their staff's care of dementia patients by personally participating in the experience.

No further trainings are scheduled.

ThirdAge Services put on the Virtual Dementia Experience training/screening program for health care and other professionals working with Alzheimer’s and related Dementia patients during 2012.   Nurses, Therapists, CNA's, Med Techs, Caregivers from Home Health companies, Home Care companies,  EMT's,  and all types of Senior residences including CCRC's, independent livings, assisted livings, memory cares, and nursing homes participated to “walk a mile in the shoes “of a person with dementia and to better understand how to care for them.

Carole Larkin, Geriatric Care Manager

 is a Certified Trainer/Facilitator of P.K. Beville’s Virtual Dementia Tour ®

The Purpose of the Virtual Dementia Experience and Training Program

The Virtual Dementia Experience is designed to give the participant the feeling of “walking a mile in the shoes” of a person who has Alzheimer’s or a related dementia.

The participant’s senses are purposely altered for a brief time during which the participant is given a series of tasks to accomplish. The impediments to seeing, hearing, moving, grasping objects, thinking and remembering are included by design. The difficulty in accomplishing the tasks is meant to directly relate to the conditions that people with a dementia endure every day.

The Virtual Dementia Experience sheds light on the seemingly inappropriate and troubling behaviors exhibited by those with dementia. It is meant to expose them as “coping mechanisms” as opposed to “bad behavior”.

With this insight the participant should develop more compassion for persons suffering under these difficult circumstances and be more open to suggestions of techniques for better communication and better care of persons with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia.

The wrap up, review and training portion of the experience is intended to reinforce the newly found empathy and add to knowledge of methods for improved communication with, and care of, those persons with a dementia.

Things I Learned from the Virtual Dementia Tour Certification Training by Carole Larkin

The Virtual Dementia Tour is a portion of Second Wind Dreams®, a non-profit corporation whose purpose is to make dreams come true for residents in nursing homes and in assisted living communities.

For more information on the Virtual Dementia Tour®

 and Second Wind Dreams®

Find them on the Web at: www.secondwind.org.